“Arguments and Facts” continues the story about the last year of life, illness and “adventures” of the body of the leader of the world proletariat (beginning in).

The first bell about the illness, which in 1923 turned Ilyich into a weak and feeble-minded person, and soon brought him to the grave, rang in 1921. The country was overcoming the consequences of the civil war, the leadership rushed from war communism to the new economic policy (NEP). And the head of the Soviet government, Lenin, whose every word the country eagerly hung on, began to complain of headaches and fatigue. Later, numbness of the limbs, up to complete paralysis, and unexplained seizures are added to this nervous excitement, during which Ilyich waves his hands and talks some nonsense... It gets to the point that Ilyich “communicates” with those around him using everything three words: “about”, “revolution” and “conference”.

In 1923, the Politburo was already doing without Lenin. Photo: Public Domain

“Makes some strange noises”

Doctors are being prescribed to Lenin all the way from Germany. But neither the “gast-arbeiters” from medicine nor the domestic luminaries of science can in any way diagnose him. Ilya Zbarsky, son and assistant of a biochemist Boris Zbarsky, who embalmed Lenin’s body and for a long time headed the laboratory at the Mausoleum, being familiar with the history of the leader’s illness, described the situation in the book “Object No. 1”: “By the end of the year (1922 - Ed.), his condition was noticeably deteriorating, he instead of articulate speech he produces some unclear sounds. After some relief, in February 1923, complete paralysis of the right arm and leg sets in... The gaze, previously penetrating, becomes expressionless and dull. German doctors invited for big money Förster, Klemperer, Nonna, Minkowski and Russian professors Osipov, Kozhevnikov, Kramer completely at a loss again.”

In the spring of 1923, Lenin was transported to Gorki - essentially to die. “In the photograph taken by Lenin’s sister (six months before his death - Ed.), we see a thinner man with a wild face and crazy eyes,” continues I. Zbarsky. - He cannot speak, he is tormented by nightmares at night and during the day, at times he screams... Against the background of some relief, on January 21, 1924, Lenin felt a general malaise, lethargy... Professors Förster and Osipov, who examined him after lunch, did not reveal any alarming symptoms. However, at about 6 o'clock in the evening the patient's condition sharply worsens, convulsions appear... pulse 120-130. Around half past seven the temperature rises to 42.5°C. At 18:50... doctors pronounce death.”

The broad masses of the people took the death of the leader of the world proletariat to heart. On the morning of January 21, Ilyich himself tore off a page of the desk calendar. Moreover, it is clear that he did it with his left hand: his right was paralyzed. In the photo: Felix Dzerzhinsky and Kliment Voroshilov at Lenin’s tomb. Source: RIA Novosti

What happened to one of the most extraordinary figures of his time? Doctors discussed epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and even lead poisoning from a bullet fired as possible diagnoses. Fanny Kaplan in 1918. One of the two bullets - it was removed from the body only after Lenin's death - broke off part of the shoulder blade, hit the lung, passed in close proximity to the vital important arteries. This allegedly could also cause premature sclerosis of the carotid artery, the extent of which became clear only during the autopsy. He cited excerpts from the protocols in his book Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Yuri Lopukhin: sclerotic changes in Lenin’s left internal carotid artery in its intracranial part were such that blood simply could not flow through it - the artery turned into a solid dense whitish cord.

Traces of a stormy youth?

However, the symptoms of the disease were little similar to ordinary vascular sclerosis. Moreover, during Lenin’s lifetime, the disease most closely resembled progressive paralysis due to brain damage due to late complications of syphilis. Ilya Zbarsky draws attention to the fact that this diagnosis was definitely meant at that time: some of the doctors invited to Lenin specialized in syphilis, and the drugs that were prescribed to the leader constituted a course of treatment specifically for this disease according to the methods of that time. IN this version, however, some facts do not fit. Two weeks before his death, on January 7, 1924, on Lenin’s initiative, his wife and sister organized a Christmas tree for children from the surrounding villages. Ilyich himself seemed to feel so well that, sitting in a wheelchair, for some time he even took part in the general fun in the winter garden of the former master's estate. On the last day of his life, he tore off a piece of the desk calendar with his left hand. Based on the results of the autopsy, the professors who worked with Lenin even made a special statement about the absence of any signs of syphilis. Yuri Lopukhin, however, in this regard refers to a note he saw from the then People's Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko pathologist, future academician Alexey Abrikosov- with a request “to pay special attention to the need for strong morphological evidence of the absence of luetic (syphilitic) lesions in Lenin in order to preserve the bright image of the leader.” Is this to reasonably dispel rumors or, conversely, to hide something? “The bright image of the leader” remains a sensitive topic today. But, by the way, it’s never too late to put an end to the debate about the diagnosis - out of scientific interest: Lenin’s brain tissue is stored in the former Brain Institute.

Hastily, in 3 days, the knocked together Mausoleum-1 was only about three meters in height. Photo: RIA Novosti

"Relics with communist sauce"

Meanwhile, while Ilyich was still alive, his comrades began a behind-the-scenes struggle for power. By the way, there is a version why on October 18-19, 1923, the sick and partially immobilized Lenin made his way from Gorki to Moscow for the only time. Formally - to an agricultural exhibition. But why did you stop by the Kremlin apartment for the whole day? Publicist N. Valentinov-Volsky, who emigrated to the USA, wrote: Lenin in his personal papers looked for those who had compromised Stalin documentation. But apparently someone has already “thinned out” the papers.

While the leader was still alive, members of the Politburo in the fall of 23 began to lively discuss his funeral. It is clear that the ceremony should be majestic, but what should be done with the body - cremated according to the proletarian anti-church fashion or embalmed according to the latest word of science? “We... instead of icons, we hung leaders and will try for Pakhom (a simple village peasant - Ed.) and the “lower classes” to discover the relics of Ilyich under a communist sauce,” the party ideologist wrote in one of his private letters Nikolai Bukharin. However, at first it was only about the farewell procedure. Therefore, Abrikosov, who performed the autopsy of Lenin’s body, also carried out embalming on January 22 - but an ordinary, temporary one. “...When opening the body, he injected into the aorta a solution consisting of 30 parts of formaldehyde, 20 parts of alcohol, 20 parts of glycerin, 10 parts of zinc chloride and 100 parts of water,” explains I. Zbarsky in the book.

On January 23, the coffin with Lenin’s body, in front of a large crowd of people who had gathered, despite the severe frost, was loaded into a mourning train (the locomotive and carriage are now in the museum at Paveletsky railway station) and taken to Moscow, to the Column Hall of the House of Unions. At this time, near the Kremlin wall on Red Square, in order to arrange the tomb and foundation of the first Mausoleum, deep frozen ground is being crushed with dynamite. Newspapers of that time reported that about 100 thousand people visited the Mausoleum in a month and a half, but a huge line was still lining up at the door. And in the Kremlin they are starting to frantically think about what to do with the body, which in early March begins to rapidly lose its presentable appearance...

The editors thank the Federal Security Service of Russia and Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Devyatov for the materials provided.

Read about how the leader was embalmed, Mausoleum-2 was built and destroyed, and his body was evacuated from Moscow during the war in the next issue of AiF.

Homizuri G. P.

Adhering to the principle of the presumption of innocence, I cite only those texts where there is a clear indication of the authorship of V. I. Lenin. As chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and leader of the party, he, of course, is responsible for all documents adopted by the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the party. But since there is no 100% guarantee of his authorship, I do not cite these documents and refer the reader to my study “Chronology of Terror”. I also do not cite the unpublished materials and drafts for articles available in the PSS - since Lenin did not make them public, it means that it is incorrect to refer to them.

1894

"G. Mikhailovsky says: “The international society of workers founded by Marx for the purpose of class struggle, did not stop the French and German workers from slaughtering and ruining each other.”<…>As for the fact that the International did not prevent the workers from slaughtering each other, it is enough to remind Mr. Mikhailovsky of the events of the Commune, which showed the real attitude of the organized proletariat towards the ruling classes.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 1, pp. 154-155).

1895

autumn

“Out of patience, the workers quit work on January 7, 1885, and within a few days they destroyed the factory shop, master Shorin’s apartment and some other factory buildings. This terrible revolt of tens of thousands of workers (the number of workers reached 11,000 people) extremely frightened the government<…>

The history of the pogroms of 1885 shows us what power lies in the united protest of workers. “You just need to make sure that this force is used more consciously, that it is not wasted in vain, on revenge on this or that individual manufacturer or breeder, on the pogrom of this or that hated factory or plant, so that the whole force of this indignation and this hatred is directed against everyone.” manufacturers, factory owners together, against the entire class of factory owners and factory owners, and waged a constant, persistent struggle against it.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 2, pp. 22-23, 25).

1899

the end of the year

“We believe that the means should be exactly those indicated by the “Emancipation of Labor” group (agitation, - revolutionary organization, - transition “at a convenient moment” to a decisive attack, which does not, in principle, renounce terror)<…>This also includes, in our opinion, the question of terror: a discussion of this issue - and, of course, a discussion not from a principled, but from a tactical side - should certainly be raised by the Social Democrats<…>In our personal opinion, terror is currently an inappropriate means of struggle, and the party (as a party) must reject it (pending a change in conditions, which could lead to a change in tactics) ... "

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 4, pp. 222-223).

1901

“In principle, we have never renounced and cannot renounce terror. This is one of the military actions that can be quite suitable and even necessary at a certain moment of the battle, under a certain state of the army and under certain conditions.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 5, p. 7).

1902

“Terror confronts them [the Social Democrats. - G.Kh.] as one of the possible auxiliary means, and not as a special method of tactics that justifies separation from revolutionary social democracy"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 6, p. 371).

“Without at all denying violence and terror in principle, we demanded work on preparing such forms of violence that would count on the direct participation of the masses and would ensure this participation.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 6, p. 386).

1903

end of June – beginning of July

"DRAFT RESOLUTION ON TERROR"

“The Congress resolutely rejects terrorism, i.e. a system of isolated political murders as a method of political struggle, which is highly inappropriate at the present time"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 7, p. 251).

1905

“It would be desirable and, from our point of view, necessary for an agreement that, instead of a general call for “individual and mass terror,” the task of united actions would be directly and definitely the immediate and actual merging of terrorism with the uprising of the masses.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 9, p. 280).

“To scare with Jacobinism at the moment of the revolution is the greatest vulgarity. A democratic dictatorship, as I have already pointed out, is not an “organization of order”, but an organization of war. Even if we captured St. Petersburg and guillotined Nicholas, we would have several Vendées in front of us. And Marx understood this perfectly well when in 1848 he recalled the Jacobins in the Neue Rheinische Gazeta. He said: “The terror of 1793 is nothing more than a plebeian way of dealing with absolutism and counter-revolution.” We also prefer to deal with the Russian autocracy in a “plebeian” way.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 10, pp. 137-138).

“Let detachments from 3 to 10, up to 30, etc. be organized immediately. Human. Let them immediately arm themselves, some as best they can, some with a revolver, some with a knife, some with a rag with kerosene for arson, etc.<…>Preachers should give each detachment short and simple recipes for bombs, a very basic account of all types of work, and then leave all the activities to them themselves. Units must immediately begin military training on immediate operations, immediately. Some will immediately undertake the murder of a spy, the bombing of a police station, others - an attack on a bank to confiscate funds for the uprising<…>Do not be afraid of these tentative attacks. They can, of course, degenerate into extremes, but this is the trouble of tomorrow, and today the trouble is in our inertia, in our doctrinairism, learned immobility, senile fear of initiative. Let each detachment learn on its own, at least from beating up policemen.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 11, pp. 336, 337, 338).

"Tasks of units revolutionary army <…>Units must arm themselves with whatever they can (gun, revolver, bomb, knife, brass knuckles, stick, rag with kerosene for arson<…>pyroxylin bomb, barbed wire, nails (against cavalry)<…>Even without weapons, units can play a very serious role:<…>4) climbing to the top of houses, to the upper floors, etc. and showering the army with stones, pouring boiling water, etc.<…>Preparatory [work – G.Kh.] includes obtaining all kinds of weapons<…>(acid for dousing police officers)<…>proceed as soon as possible to military action in order to<…>raising funds for the uprising (confiscation of government funds)<…>Launch attacks when favorable conditions not only the right, but also the direct duty of every revolutionary. Killing spies, policemen, gendarmes, bombing police stations<…>taking away government funds<…>The units of the revolutionary army must<…>to act with armed force, beating the Black Hundreds, killing them, blowing up their headquarters, etc. etc."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 11, pp. 339, 340. 341, 342).

1906

April

“The scientific concept of dictatorship means nothing more than power that is unrestricted by anything, not constrained by any laws, absolutely not constrained by any rules, and directly based on violence.<…>dictatorship is not carried out by the whole people, but only by the revolutionary people<…>

Is it good that the people use such illegal, disorderly, unplanned and unsystematic methods of struggle as the seizure of freedom, the creation of a new, formally unrecognized and revolutionary government, and use violence against the oppressors of the people? Yes it is very good. This is the highest manifestation of the people's struggle for freedom."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 12, pp. 320-322).

“S.-D. The press has long been pointing out (the old Iskra) that the merciless extermination of civilian and military commanders is our duty during an uprising<…>And that guerrilla war, that mass terror that has been going on everywhere in Russia almost continuously since December, will undoubtedly help teach the masses the correct tactics at the time of the uprising. Social democracy must recognize and adopt this mass terror into its tactics. Of course, by organizing and controlling it"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 13, pp. 373, 375).

1908

“The second mistake [of the proletariat Paris Commune. - G.Kh.] - excessive generosity of the proletariat: it was necessary to exterminate their enemies, and he tried to morally influence them"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 16, p. 452).

1910

“In 1905 and 1906, the peasants, in fact, only scared the tsar and the landowners. But they must not be frightened, they must be destroyed, their government - the tsarist government - must be wiped off the face of the earth."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 19, p. 422).

1914

IN AND. Lenin - I.F. Armand:

“We are for an exchange of opinions, for the IBU resolution - this is NB - but we are absolutely against Kautsky’s vile phrase. Beat him mercilessly for this, stipulating that we are for Aussprache (exchange of opinions) etc.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 48, p. 238).

IN AND. Lenin - I.F. Armand:

“It is most desirable that the section adopt a massacre resolution against Kautsky (calling his statement about the death of the party shameless, insolent, monstrous, ignorant)<…>Put the question of the massacre of Kautsky in the KZO and vote: if the majority fails, I will come and flog this majority so that they will not forget until the next broom. But I need to know who will make up such a majority, who is capable of what.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 48, p. 254).

1917

“To become power, class-conscious workers must win the majority to their side: as long as there is no violence against the masses, there is no other path to power.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 31, p. 147).

July. middle

“The state is, first of all, detachments of armed people with material accessories like prisons,” wrote Friedrich Engels.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 34, p. 14).

Aug. Sept

“The state is a special organization of force, it is an organization of violence for the suppression of any class<…>The doctrine of class struggle, applied by Marx to the question of the state and socialist revolution, leads necessarily to the recognition of the political dominance of the proletariat, its dictatorship, i.e. power not shared with anyone and based directly on the armed force of the masses<…>All previous revolutions have improved the state machine, but it must be smashed and broken<…>Them [oppressors, exploiters, capitalists. - G.Kh.] we must suppress in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be broken by force - it is clear that where there is suppression, there is violence, there is no freedom, there is no democracy "

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 33, pp. 24, 26, 28, 89).

October revolution. Seizure of power. Now theoretical research can finally be put into practice.

Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the Press":

“...The Council of People's Commissars decides:

General regulations on the press

1. Only press organs are subject to closure: 1) calling for open resistance or disobedience to the Workers' and Peasants' Government; 2) sowing confusion through clearly slanderous distortion of facts; 3) calling for acts that are clearly criminal, i.e. of a criminal nature.

2. Prohibitions of press organs, temporary or permanent, are carried out only by resolution of the Council of People's Commissars.

3. This provision is temporary and will be canceled by a special decree upon the onset of normal conditions of public life.

Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)

(V.I. Lenin and the Cheka, 1975, pp. 15-16).

(Katsva, 1997, no. 37, p. 1).

Appeal from the Council of People's Commissars to the Military Revolutionary Committee:

“... The Council of People's Commissars invites the Military Revolutionary Committee to take the most decisive measures to eradicate profiteering and sabotage, hiding reserves, malicious delays of cargo, etc.

All persons guilty of such actions. are subject, according to special resolutions of the Military Revolutionary Committee, to immediate arrest and imprisonment in Kronstadt prisons, until they are brought before a military revolutionary court.

All popular organizations must be involved in the fight against food predators.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars

V. Ulyanov (Lenin)"

(V.I. Lenin and the Cheka, 1975, pp. 23-24).

Order of the Council of People's Commissars on the arrest of employees of the State Bank:

“Employees of the State Bank who refused to recognize the Government of Workers and Peasants - the Council of People's Commissars - and to hand over the affairs of the Bank should be arrested.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars

Vl. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars

N. Gorbunov"

(V.I. Lenin and the Cheka, 1975, p. 24).

Lenin signed an appeal from the Council of People's Commissars and the Military Revolutionary Committee, which, in particular, said: “All persons guilty of... profiteering... are subject to special punishment. resolutions of the Military Revolutionary Committee for immediate arrest"

(Rossi, 1991, p. 66).

Lenin to the Military Revolutionary Committee:

The Council of People's Commissars confirms the act of dissolution of the Moscow City Duma, issued by the Moscow Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 7)

“The newspaper “Selsky Vestnik” ceases to exist. Its editor Shebunin is relieved of his position. Instead of the “Rural Bulletin”, “Village Poor” will be published, the editor of which is G.G. Berry.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars

Ulyanov (Lenin)"

(Vodovozova, Pankov, 1991, p. 5).

“Comrade Shlyapnikov and comrade. Dzerzhinsky

<…>The question in the Urals is very acute: the local (located in St. Petersburg) boards of the Ural factories must be arrested immediately, threatened with court (revolutionary) for creating a crisis in the Urals, and all Ural factories confiscated. Prepare a draft resolution as soon as possible"

(V.I. Lenin and the Cheka, 1975, p. 25).

Decree on the arrest of the leaders of the Cadet Party:

“Members of the leading institutions of the Cadet Party, as a party of enemies of the people, are subject to arrest and trial by revolutionary tribunals.

The local Soviets are charged with special supervision of the Cadet Party due to its connection with the Kornilov-Kaledin civil war against the revolution.

The decree comes into force from the moment it is signed.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars

Vl. Ulyanov (Lenin)

People's Commissars: N. Avilov (N. Glebov), P. Stuchka,

V. Menzhinsky, Dzhugashvili-Stalin,

G. Petrovsky, A. Shlichter, P. Dybenko

Administrator of the Council of People's Commissars

Vlad. Bonch-Bruevich

Secretary of the Council N. Gorbunov

10 ½ hours evenings"

(V.I. Lenin and the Cheka, 1975, p. 32).

From minutes No. 20 of the Council of People's Commissars meeting:

“The chairman is V.I. Lenin

8. On the possibility of a strike of employees in government agencies on a nationwide scale.

Resolved:

8. Instruct Comrade Dzerzhinsky to form a special commission to find out the possibility of combating such a strike through the most energetic revolutionary measures, to find out ways to suppress malicious sabotage.”

(V.I. Lenin and the Cheka, 1975, p. 33).

"8.XII.1917

Tt. Blagonravov and Bonch-Bruevich

The arrests, which must be made on the instructions of Comrade. Peters, are of exceptionally great importance and must be produced with great energy. Special measures must be taken to prevent the destruction of papers, escapes, concealment of documents, etc.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars

V. Ulyanov (Lenin)"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 18).

Lenin’s “Theses on the Constituent Assembly” were published in Pravda. They said, in particular: “The Republic of Soviets is a higher form of democracy than an ordinary bourgeois republic with a Constituent Assembly... The Constituent Assembly... comes into conflict with the will and interests of the working people and exploited classes, which began the socialist revolution against the bourgeoisie on October 25. Naturally, the interests of this revolution are higher than the formal rights of the Constituent Assembly... The only chance for a painless resolution of the crisis... is... an unconditional statement by the Constituent Assembly on the recognition of Soviet power."

(Katsva, 1997, no. 37, pp. 2-3).

1918

From the speech of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd on the issue of measures to combat hunger:

“... The facts of abuse are obvious, the profiteering is monstrous, but what have the soldiers and workers done among the masses to fight it? If you don’t rouse the masses to self-activity, nothing will come of it. It is necessary to convene a plenary meeting of the Council and decide to carry out mass searches in Petrograd and at freight stations. For searches, each factory, each company must assign detachments, those who do not want to are involved in searches, but everyone must be obliged to do the searches, under the threat of detachments, those who do not want to participate in searches must be attracted, but everyone must be obliged to do so, under the threat of being deprived of a bread card. Until we apply terror - execution on the spot - to speculators, nothing will come of it<…>The wealthy part of the population must be kept without bread for 3 days, since they have reserves of other products and can get them from speculators at high prices."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 35, p. 311).

From the speech of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd:

“The old Bolshevik was right when he explained to the Cossack what Bolshevism was about. To the Cossack’s question: is it true that you Bolsheviks are robbing? - the old man answered: yes, we rob the loot.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 35, p. 327).

Having learned that on May 2 the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced four employees of the Moscow Investigation Board to ½ year for bribery, V.I. Lenin wrote the following letter:

"In the Central Committee of the RCP

I ask you to put on the order of the day the question of expelling from the party those members who, as judges in the case (2.V. 1918) of bribe-takers, were limited to a sentence of ½ year in prison.

Instead of shooting bribe-takers, passing such mockingly weak and lenient sentences is a shameful act for a communist and revolutionary. Such comrades must be prosecuted in the court of public opinion and expelled from the party, because their place is next to the Kerenskys and Martovs, and not next to the communist revolutionaries.

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 36, p. 282).

On the same day he sent the following note to D.I. Kursky:

“It is necessary to immediately, with demonstrative speed, introduce a bill that penalties for bribery (extortion, bribery, summary of bribes, etc., etc.) should be no less than ten years in prison and, in addition, ten years of forced labor.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 70).

At the insistence of V.I. Lenin, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee reviewed the case [not the court, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee! – G.Kh.] and three of the accused were sentenced to 10 years in prison (PSS V.I. Lenin, vol. 50, p. 424).

IN AND. Lenin addressed the workers of Petrograd with a letter “On Hunger,” calling on them to “organize a great “crusade” against grain speculators, kulaks, world-eaters<…>violators of the strictest state order in the collection, delivery and distribution of grain"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 36, pp. 357-364).

Due to the difficult food situation in the country, V.I. Lenin writes “Theses on the Current Moment,” which, in particular, said:

“1) Transform the Military Commissariat into the Military Food Commissariat, i.e. concentrate 9/10 of the work of the Military Commissariat on remaking the army for the war for grain and on waging such a war - for 3 months: June - August.

2) Declare martial law throughout the country for the same time.

3) Mobilize the army, highlighting its healthy parts, and call on 19-year-olds, at least in some areas, for systematic military operations to conquer, recapture, collect and transport grain and fuel.

4) Introduce execution for indiscipline.

<…>9) Introduce mutual liability for the entire detachment, for example, the threat of shooting the tenth, for each case of robbery.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 36, pp. 374, 375).

IN AND. Lenin - To an unidentified person:

“Note from an unidentified person: The question is urgent - Ter-Gabrielyan is waiting, and the train is waiting for him.

Note from V.I. Lenin:

"How? Has he left yet?

I have already signed one certificate for him.

Can you also tell Theroux that he would prepare everything for the complete burning of Baku in the event of an invasion, and that he would announce this in print in Baku?

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents, 1999, p. 239).

“G.E. ZINOVIEV

Also Lashevich and other members of the Central Committee

Comrade Zinoviev! Only today we heard in the Central Committee that in St. Petersburg the workers wanted to respond to the murder of Volodarsky with mass terror and that you (not you personally, but the St. Petersburg Tsekists or Pekists) restrained it.

I strongly protest!

We are compromising ourselves: even in the resolutions of the Council of Deputies we threaten with mass terror, but when it comes down to it, we slow down the revolutionary initiative of the masses, which is quite correct.

This is impossible!

Hello! Lenin

P.S. Squads and squads: use the victory in the re-elections. If the people of St. Petersburg move 10-20 thousand to the Tambov province and the Urals, etc., they will save themselves and the entire revolution, it is quite and certain. The harvest is gigantic, it will only last a few weeks.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 106).

From the speech of V.I. Lenin at the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets:

“A revolutionary who does not want to be a hypocrite cannot refuse the death penalty<…>They refer to decrees abolishing the death penalty. But a bad revolutionary is one who, at a moment of acute struggle, stops before the inviolability of the law. Laws in transitional times have temporary significance. And if a law hinders the development of the revolution, it is repealed or amended.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 36, pp. 503, 504).

"TO THE SUPREME MILITARY COUNCIL

Send from Moscow today;

Immediately give me the names of 6 (former) generals (and addresses) and 12 (former) General Staff officers responsible for the accurate and accurate execution of this order, warning that they will be shot for sabotage if they do not comply.

M.D. Bonch-Bruevich must answer this in writing immediately via the scooter driver.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin)"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 141).

From a letter from G.F. Fedorov:

"9.VIII.1918

Comrade Fedorov!

In Nizhny, a White Guard uprising is clearly being prepared. We must exert all our efforts, form a troika of dictators (you, Markin, etc.), immediately impose mass terror, shoot and take away hundreds of prostitutes who solder soldiers, former officers, etc.

Not a minute of delay<…>

We must act with all our might: massive searches. Executions for possession of weapons. Mass deportation of Mensheviks and unreliables..."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 142).

Gubernia Executive Committee

Copy of Evgenia Bogdanovna Bosch

I received your telegram. It is necessary to organize enhanced security from selected reliable people, to carry out merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; doubtful ones are locked up in a concentration camp outside the city. Launch the expedition. Telegraph execution.

Pre-People's Commissar Lenin"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, pp. 143-144).

From a note by V.I. Lenina A.D. Tsyurupe:

“...(2) The draft decree - in each grain volost there are 25-30 hostages from the rich, who are responsible with their lives for collecting and dumping all surplus

(3) Order Popov quickly: District outfits. Those. How much surplus bread should there be in each volost? How much should which one give?<…>

I propose not to take “hostages”, but to assign them by name to the volosts.

Purpose of assignment: it is the rich, as they are responsible for the indemnity, who are responsible with their lives for the immediate collection and dumping of surplus grain.

The following instructions (to appoint “hostages”) are given

(α) committees of the poor,

(β) to all food detachments."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, pp. 144-145).

Note from V.I. Lenina, A.D. Tsyurupa and E. Sklyansky via direct wire to Penza:

“To the Chairman of the Penza Provincial Executive Committee

When suppressing the uprising of the five volosts, make every effort and use all measures in order to remove all surplus grain from the hands of the holders, doing this simultaneously with the suppression of the uprising. To do this, for each volost, appoint [do not take, but appoint] hostages from the kulaks, the rich and world-eaters, on whom you entrust the responsibility of collecting and transporting to the indicated stations or marked points and handing over to the authorities all the surplus grain.

The hostages are responsible with their lives for the exact execution of the imposition of indemnity in the shortest possible time; this measure must be carried out decisively, promptly and mercilessly under your responsibility, the provincial food commissar and the military commissar. Why are these persons given the appropriate powers?<…>

Predsovnarkom V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

People's Commissar of Labor Tsyurupa

People's Commissar Sklyansky"

(Kozhin, 2000, p. 5).

From a telegram from V.I. Lenin to the Vologda Gubernia Executive Committee:

“It is necessary to immediately mobilize the bourgeoisie to dig trenches.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 147).

IN AND. Lenin - letter to V.V. Kuraev, E.B. Bosch, A.E. Minkin:

"11.VIII.1918

Comrades Kuraev, Bosch, Minkin and other Penza communists.

Comrades! The uprising of the five kulak volosts must lead to merciless suppression. This is required by the interests of the entire revolution, because now everywhere there is a “last decisive battle” with the kulaks. You need to give a sample.

1) Hang (be sure to hang so that the people can see) at least 100 known kulaks, rich people, Bloodsuckers.

3) Take away all their bread.

4) Assign hostages - according to yesterday's telegram.

Make it so that hundreds of miles around people see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle the bloodsucking kulaks.

Wire receipt and execution.

Your Lenin.

P.S. Find tougher people."

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents, 1999, p. 246).

IN AND. Lenin and F.E. Dzerzhinsky signed arrest warrants for their recent comrades in the struggle, Menshevik leaders L. Martov, F. Dan, A. Potresov and Goldman

(Werth, 1999, p. 96).

Telegram to V.I. Lenin to the Livensky Executive Committee:

"20.VIII.1918

I welcome the energetic suppression of kulaks and White Guards in the district. It is necessary to strike while the iron is hot and, without missing a minute, organize the poor in the district, confiscate all the grain and all property from the rebel kulaks, hang the instigators from the kulaks, mobilize and arm the poor under reliable leaders from our detachment, arrest hostages from the rich and hold them until all the surplus grain is collected and dumped in their volosts. Telegraph execution. Send part of the exemplary Iron Regiment immediately to Penza.

Pre-People's Commissar Lenin"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 160).

From a telegram from V.I. Lenina A.K. Pikes:

“...I temporarily advise you to appoint your bosses and shoot conspirators and hesitators, without asking anyone and without allowing idiotic red tape...”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 165).

From a letter from V.I. Lenina A.G. Shlyapnikov:

“...Strive with all your might to catch and shoot Astrakhan speculators and bribe-takers...”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 219).

December (until the 23rd)

The fundamental passage from the book by V.I. Lenin "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky":

“Dictatorship is power based directly on violence, not bound by any laws.

The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is power won and maintained by the violence of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, power not bound by any laws.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 245).

1919

The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense (chaired by V.I. Lenin) adopted the following Resolution:

“The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense at a meeting on February 15 of this year, having heard the question of exempting all kinds of population from mobilization at a distance of 20 miles from the railway line, decided:

Instruct Sklyansky, Markov, Petrovsky and Dzerzhinsky to immediately arrest several members of the executive committees and committees of the poor in those areas where snow clearing is not being entirely satisfactory. In the same areas, take hostages from the peasants with the understanding that if the snow is not cleared, they will be shot. A report on the execution with information on the number of those arrested will be scheduled in a week.

Secretary"

(V.I. Lenin and the Cheka, 1975, pp. 152-153).

March

IN AND. Lenin to American journalist Lincoln Steffens:

“We must find some way to get rid of the bourgeoisie, the upper classes. They will not allow us to make any economic changes that they would not have made before the revolution; so they need to be kicked out of here. I myself don’t see how we can scare them so that they get out of Russia without mass executions. Of course, when abroad, they will pose the same threat; however, emigrants are not so harmful. The only solution I see is for the threat of the Red Terror to spread the terror and force them to flee."

(Latyshev, 1996, p. 205).

IN AND. Lenin and N.N. Krestinsky - G.E. Zinoviev:

“... Send the completely trustworthy to the Don, the unreliable to concentration camps, the undetermined to Oryol and similar non-front-line, but not hungry provinces...”

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 289).

IN AND. Lenin - I.V. To Stalin:

“As for foreigners, I advise you not to rush into deportation. Wouldn’t it be better to go to a concentration camp and then exchange them?”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 50, p. 335).

From the Letter of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) to all party organizations “Everyone to fight Denikin!”, written by V.I. Lenin:

“We only note that the petty-bourgeois democrats closest to the Soviet government, who call themselves, as usual, socialists, for example, some of the “left” Mensheviks, etc., especially like to be indignant at the “barbaric”, in their opinion, method of taking hostages.

Let them be indignant, but wars cannot be waged without this, and when the danger worsens, the use of this means must, in every sense, be expanded and more frequent. Often, for example, Menshevik or yellow printers, railroad workers from among the “managers” and secret speculators, kulaks, the propertied part of the urban (and rural) population, and similar elements approach the matter of defense from Kolchak and from Denikin with an infinitely criminal and infinitely impudent indifference that goes beyond into sabotage. It is necessary to compile lists of such groups (or force them to form groups with mutual guarantee) and not only put them in trench work, as is often practiced, but also entrust them with the most varied and comprehensive material assistance to the Red Army."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 39, p. 62).

“Frunze. Cipher.

Particularly carefully discuss how to seize oil in Guryev, this is a must, act with bribery and the threat of the wholesale extermination of the Cossacks if they burn the oil in Guryev. Answer quickly and more accurately.

(V.I. Lenin Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 297).

IN AND. Lenin, in his article “How the bourgeoisie uses renegades”, wrote:

“... It is an outright lie that the Bolsheviks were opponents of the death penalty for the era of the revolution. At the Second Congress of our party, in 1903, when Bolshevism arose, the party program was drawn up, and the minutes of the congress indicate that the idea of ​​​​introducing the abolition of the death penalty into the program only caused mocking exclamations: “and for Nicholas II?” Even the Mensheviks in 1903 did not dare to vote on proposals to abolish the death penalty for the Tsar.” And in 1917, during the Kerensky regime, I wrote in Pravda that not a single revolutionary government can do without the death penalty and that the whole question is only against which class is the weapon of the death penalty directed by this government ... "

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 39, pp. 183-184).

IN AND. Lenin - L.D. Trotsky:

“...It is devilishly important for us to finish with Yudenich (namely, to finish - to finish off). If the offensive has begun, is it possible to mobilize another 20 thousand St. Petersburg workers? plus 10 thousand bourgeoisie, put machine guns behind them, shoot several hundred and achieve real mass pressure on Yudenich..."

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 304).

December

IN AND. Lenin – Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b):

“It is necessary to immediately establish a practical, brief, but significant form of reporting (2 times a month) for each party worker from Ukraine.

5-10 questions highlight the most important ones. Approved by the Politburo.

Arrest for failure to send reports.

Otherwise we’ll miss Ukraine.”

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 314).

1920

IN AND. Lenin to the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Light of the 5th Army Smirnov:

“I was informed about obvious sabotage among railway workers<…>They tell me that the workers of Izhevsk are also participating in this. I am surprised by your conciliation and the fact that you did not carry out mass reprisals against saboteurs” (Werth, 1999, p. 109).

IN AND. Lenin - L.D. Trotsky:

“The bread ration should be reduced for those who do not work in the transport sector, which is decisive today, and increased for those who work in it. Let thousands of people die, if necessary, but the country must be saved” (Werth, 1999, p. 109).

Excerpts from the speech of V.I. Lenin at the IV Conference of Provincial Extraordinary Commissions:

“Although, on the initiative of Comrade Dzerzhinsky, after the capture of Rostov, the death penalty was abolished, at the very beginning a reservation was made that we would not turn a blind eye to the possibility of reinstating executions. For us, this question is determined by the expediency<…>Before and after the October Revolution, we stood at the point of view that the birth of a new system is impossible without revolutionary violence, that all the complaints and complaints that we hear from the non-party petty-bourgeois intelligentsia represent only a reaction<…>History has shown that without revolutionary violence it is impossible to achieve victory. Without revolutionary violence directed at the direct enemies of the workers and peasants, it is impossible to break the resistance of these exploiters. And on the other hand, revolutionary violence cannot but manifest itself in relation to the shaky, uncontrolled elements of the working masses themselves” (Lenin, PSS, vol. 40, pp. 113-121).

IN AND. Lenin - I.V. To Stalin:

“... Threaten with execution that slob who, in charge of communications, does not know how to give you a good amplifier and ensure that the telephone connection with me is fully operational...”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 51, p. 134).

“Sklyansky: Send encryption to Smirnov (Rvs 5)

Don’t spread any news about Kolchak, don’t print absolutely anything, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival did this and that under the influence of Kappel’s threat and the danger of White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk.

the signature is also a code

1) are you going to do it extremely reliably?..”

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents..., 1999, p. 329).

IN AND. Lenin - I.T. Smilge and G.K. Ordzhonikidze:

“... We desperately need oil, consider a manifesto to the population that we will slaughter everyone if oil and oil fields are burned or spoiled, and on the contrary, we will give life to everyone if Maikop and especially Grozny are handed over intact...”

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 330).

IN AND. Lenin - I.N. Smirnov:

“No conditions with the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks: either they submit to us without any conditions, or they will be arrested.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 51, p. 156).

Speech by V.I. Lenin at the III All-Russian Congress trade unions: “... Dictatorial power and one-man rule do not contradict socialist democracy<…>Everyone knows that Marxism is a theoretical justification for the abolition of classes.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 40, pp. 301, 303).

“Protocol vol. Belenky, Ivanychev and Gabalin, it was established that by order of the head of the sanatorium, Comrade. Weber was cut down on June 14, 1920, a completely healthy spruce in the sanatorium park.

For allowing such damage to Soviet property, I order Comrade Weber, the head of the sanatorium on the Soviet estate of Gorki, to be arrested for 1 month. The sentence is to be carried out by the Podolsk district executive committee<…>

Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense

14.VI.1920. V. Ulyanov (Lenin)"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 41, p. 151).

IN AND. Lenin to the Fuel Department of the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies:

“... If heroic measures are not taken, I will personally carry out not only arrests of all responsible persons, but also executions in the Council of Defense and the Central Committee...”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 51, p. 216).

Something is unknown about Napoleon, Hitler or Stalin themselves arresting and shooting their careless subordinates...

IN AND. Lenin - Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) regarding the proposal to let F. Nansen into Russia:

“In my opinion, don’t let him in yet. We have to keep an eye on him. – G.Kh.] there is no one. We'll miss it.

If other members of the Bureau are in favor of letting him in, then I am making an amendment: there is absolutely no one with him.

24/VI. Lenin"

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 349).

“To the Chairman of the Petrograd Executive Committee, Comrade Zinoviev

The famous physiologist Pavlov asks to go abroad due to his difficult financial situation. It is hardly rational to let Pavlov go abroad, since he previously spoke out in the sense that, being a truthful person, he would not be able, if relevant conversations arise, not to speak out against Soviet power and communism in Russia.

Meanwhile, this scientist represents such great cultural value that it is impossible to allow him to be forcibly kept in Russia under conditions of material insecurity.

In view of this, it would be desirable, as an exception, to provide him with extra-normal rations and generally take care of a more or less comfortable environment for him, unlike others ... "

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 51, p. 222).

"By direct wire

Uralsk, Revkom of the Ural region

Presidium of the Executive Committee, Saratov

Copy of Avksentievsky, copy of Uralsk, Gubernia Communist Party,

Saratov, gubkompart

Former division commander of the 2nd Turkdivision Sapozhkov raised an uprising in the Buzuluk region<…>In order to ensure the fight against Sapozhkov and prevent his hasty escape, I propose:<…>from villages lying on the route of Sapozhkov’s detachments, take hostages in order to prevent the possibility of assistance..."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 51, p. 348).

Speech by V.I. Lenin at the III Congress of the RKSM.

“...What do we need to take from the old school, from the old science? The old school declared that it wanted to create a comprehensively educated person, that it taught science in general. We know that this was completely false, for the entire society was founded and maintained on the division of people into classes, into exploiters and oppressed. Naturally, the entire old school, being entirely imbued with the class spirit, gave knowledge only to the children of the bourgeoisie. Every word she said was forged in the interests of the bourgeoisie<…>Rejecting the old school, we set ourselves the task of taking from it only what we need in order to achieve a real communist education<…>The old school was a school of study, it forced people to absorb a lot of unnecessary, superfluous, dead knowledge that filled their heads and turned the younger generation into officials fitted to the general rank<…>

It is necessary that the whole task of upbringing, educating and teaching modern youth should be the inculcation of communist morality in them. But does communist morality exist? Does communist morality exist? Of course yes<…>Our morality is completely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. Our morality is derived from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat<…>We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploitative society and unite all working people around the proletariat, creating a new society of communists.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 41, pp. 303, 309, 311).

end of October – November

IN AND. Lenin - E.M. Sklyansky:

“... Take military measures, that is, try to punish Latvia and Est [land] militarily (for example, “on the shoulders” of Balakhovich, cross the border somewhere even 1 mile and hang 100-1000 officials and rich people there)”

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 399).

“...great plan! Finish it together with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of the “greens” (we will then blame them on them) we will walk 10-20 miles and outweigh the kulaks, priests, and landowners. Prize: 100,000 rubles for a hanged man"

(ibid., p. 400).

Closing remarks by V.I. Lenin at the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets:

“... We have heard here about the unity of the proletariat and now we have seen in practice that the unity of the proletariat in the era of social revolution can only be achieved by the extreme revolutionary party of Marxism, only by mercilessly fighting against all other parties.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 42, p. 173).

end of December

IN AND. Lenin - G.M. Krzhizhanovsky:

“... to mobilize all without exception engineers, electrical engineers, all those who graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, etc. Responsibility: at least 2 (4?) lectures per week, train at least (10-50?) people in electricity. If you do it, there's a bonus. If you don’t comply, you’ll end up in prison.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 52, p. 38).

1921

"T. Molotov!

Were there no personal responsibilities? It is absolutely necessary to always appoint them in order to know exactly who is to be reprimanded and who is to be arrested. This is the only way to work..."

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, p. 438).

"T. Bryukhanov!

Apparently, communist food discipline is weakening, and very significantly.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

We must pull it up with all our might, and immediately, otherwise we will not get rid of hunger.

1) The People's Commissariat for Food must establish responsible persons in the provinces and districts in order to know who to imprison (1) as a product? 2) pre-executive committee? 3) conscript?? At least 3 responsible persons are required).

2) Not a single violation (taken from what was assigned to the center) should be left without the arrest of the perpetrators (through the All-Russian Central Executive Committee).

You write long pieces of paper with complaints, or rather with tears, instead of business proposals:

“to oblige the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to arrest such and such for failure to comply with orders, which led to the famine of the center.”

These are the proposals that NKprod should submit to the Politburo.

3) Now begin a similar campaign of merciless arrests of local provincial food committees, etc. for negligence, lack of preparation, etc.

NKprod will be responsible for the unpreparedness of the apparatus and for its lack of execution"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 52, pp. 211-212).

In connection with the III Congress of the Comintern opening in Moscow in June, V.I. Lenin decided to organize “Potemkin Villages” in the capital and sent the commissioner of the Moscow Regional Food Committee A.B. Khalatov the following note:

"T. Robes!

Your feedback?

1) Will you be able to give the Moscow workers wheat by the opening day of the International Congress? How many?

2) To what extent is improvement in the grain situation guaranteed for St. Petersburg and Moscow during June?

No need for details.

Maximum 2-4 digits in cars.

29. V. Lenin"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 52, p. 221).

“In response to V.I.’s note. Lenina A.B. Khalatov reported that during the month of June Moscow would be regularly provided with bread at the rate of 2/3 pounds per day for workers, 1/2 pound for children, 1/3 pound for employees (20% more in Petrograd). In addition, by the opening of the Third Congress of the Comintern, two pounds of beans will be given to workers, a pound to employees and a pound of rice to children” (PSS V.I. Lenin, vol. 52, p. 415).

Report by V.I. Lenin at the Third Congress of the Comintern:

“... The task of socialism is to abolish classes. At the forefront of the exploiting class are large landowners and capitalist industrialists.<…>But besides this class of exploiters<…>there is a class of small producers and small farmers. The main question of the revolution now lies in the struggle against these last two classes. To get rid of them, it is necessary to use different methods than in the fight against large landowners and capitalists. We could simply expropriate the last two classes and drive them away, which is what we did. But with the last capitalist classes, with the small producers and with the petty bourgeoisie, who exist in all countries, we cannot do this. In most capitalist countries these classes represent a very strong minority, approximately 30 to 45% of the population. If we add to them the petty-bourgeois element of the working class, the figure will be even more than 50%. They cannot be expropriated or driven away - here the struggle must be conducted differently."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 44, pp. 39, 41).

IN AND. Lenin - L.A. Fotieva:

“... 3) When sending a letter to Molotov, add from me: I propose to send a Control Commission to the Don from a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee + 10 (or 20) Sverdlovtsians (take the author with you) and shoot on the spot whoever is convicted of robbery" (Lenin, PSS, t 53, p. 27).

“In the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b)

“Pass through the Politburo and through the service station:

1) punish Badaev and his two closest employees with arrest for 1 Sunday for failure to comply with the order of the STO;

2) warn him and them: next time – for a month and we’ll drive him away.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 53, p. 56).

IN AND. Lenin - A.I. Potyaev, V.A. Avanesov:

“... 1) A severe reprimand and, in my opinion, personal arrest for Nepryakhin and the culprit in the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions for red tape and lack of management and violation of the order of the STO” (Lenin, PSS, vol. 53, p. 58).

IN AND. Lenin - V.A. Smolyaninov:

“We need to: 1) speed things up,

2) bring the perpetrators to justice

for red tape (11 months!!!).

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 53, p. 70).

IN AND. Lenin - G.I. Myasnikov:

“... We don’t believe in “absolutes”. We laugh at “pure democracy”.

The slogan of “freedom of the press” became world famous at the end of the Middle Ages and up to the 19th century.”

And then, therefore, he was not there. What is the letter about then?...

"Why? Because he expressed the progressive bourgeoisie, i.e. her struggle against priests and kings, feudal lords, landowners.

There is not a single country in the world that has done and is doing so much to liberate the masses from the influence of priests and landowners, like the RSFSR. We have accomplished this task of “freedom of the press” and are performing it better than anyone else in the world.

Freedom of the press all over the world, where there are capitalists, there is freedom to buy newspapers, buy writers, bribe and buy and fabricate “public opinion” in favor of the bourgeoisie.

It is a fact.

No one will ever be able to refute it.

And we have? Can anyone deny that the bourgeoisie is defeated, but not destroyed? Why is she hiding? There's no denying it.

Freedom of the press in the RSFSR, surrounded by bourgeois enemies of the whole world, is freedom political organization the bourgeoisie and its most faithful servants, the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.

This is an irrefutable fact<…>

We don’t want to commit suicide and therefore we won’t do it.

We clearly see the fact: “freedom of the press” in fact means the immediate purchase by the international bourgeoisie of hundreds and thousands of Kadet and Menshevik writers and the organization of their propaganda, their struggle against us.

It is a fact. “They” are richer than us and will buy “strength” ten times greater than our existing strength.

No. We won’t do this, we won’t help the global bourgeoisie.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 44, see 78-79).

IN AND. Lenin to the Small Council of People's Commissars:

“Our houses are dirty - vile. The law is good for nothing. It is necessary to indicate 10 times more accurately and completely the responsible persons (and not just one, but many, in order of priority) and put them in prison mercilessly.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 53, pp. 106-107).

IN AND. Lenin - I.V. To Stalin and all members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b):

“... I propose: today, Friday, 26/8, by resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, to dissolve “Kukish” - motive: their refusal to work, their resolution. Assign one vechekist to receive and liquidate.

Arrest Prokopovich today on charges of anti-government speech (at a meeting where Runov was present) and hold him for three months while we thoroughly examine this meeting.

The remaining members of “Kukish” should be immediately, today, expelled from Moscow, placing one at a time in district towns, if possible, without railways, under supervision.”

In response to the belated petition of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society for the release of Professor M.M. Tikhvinsky, who was shot on August 25, or he himself specifically responded belatedly to V.I. Lenin noted: “Tikhvinsky was not “accidentally” arrested: chemistry and counter-revolution are not mutually exclusive.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 53, p. 169).

IN AND. Lenin - Ya.A. Berzin:

“...About “Who Helps Hunger” you are also wrong. They should have been arrested..."

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents..., 1999, p. 468).

IN AND. Lenin - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Byelorussian SSR:

“... Teumin’s report to the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade does not respond to the request of the STO<…>The Economic Conference of Belarus sends either unsubscribes or unsatisfactory answers. Please immediately<…>investigate the case and bring those responsible for red tape and sabotage to justice.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 53, p. 254).

IN AND. Lenin - G.V. Chicherin in response to his complaints about the atrocities of the security officers against American, German and Turkish diplomats:

"T. Chicherin! I completely agree with you. You are to blame for your weakness. We must not “talk” and not only “write”, but propose (and we must do this on time, and not be late) to the Politburo:

1) send, by agreement with the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, an arch-firm person,

2) arrest the lousy security officers and bring the perpetrators to Moscow and shoot them.”

(“Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1990, No. 4, p. 185”).

"Propose to the Politburo<…>shoot” - what? Will the Politburo members themselves be shot?

IN AND. Lenin - A.D. Tsyurupe:

“... There are also few executions (I am for execution in such cases). They say that state property is being stolen monstrously in this way” (Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 57).

1922

IN AND. Lenin - I.S. Unshlikhtu:

“The transparency of revolutionary tribunals is not always the case; strengthen their composition with “yours” [i.e. Cheka - G.Kh.] people, strengthen their connection (in every way) with the Cheka; increase the speed and force of their repressions, increase the attention of the Central Committee to this. The slightest increase in banditry, etc. should entail martial law and executions on the spot. SNK will be able to do this quickly if you don’t miss it, and you can do it over the phone.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 144).

IN AND. Lenin - G.E. Zinoviev:

"Top secret<…>As for the Mensheviks, you are absolutely right that we must answer unconditionally in the negative. I think that you are also guilty on this point of unjustified indulgences. For example, it was decided not to release Rozhkov. Meanwhile, he was released without any decision from the Politburo. I think that nothing but harm will come from such a policy.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 149).

T. Unshlikhtu

There is no way I can be in the Politburo. I'm getting worse.

I think there is no need for me.

The matter now is only a matter of purely technical measures leading to our courts intensifying (and making faster) repression against the Mensheviks.

And the courts and the Council of People's Commissars or the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

With com. Hello Lenin"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 149).

IN AND. Lenin - D.I. Kursky:

“Copies: 1) Molotov for members of the Politburo

2) A.D. Tsyurupe

3) Rykov (when he arrives)

4) Comrade Enukidze for members

Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

With a special request: do not reproduce, only

show on receipt, don’t let anyone talk,

don't blab in front of your enemies.

Comrade Kursky!

The activities of the People's Commissariat of Justice, apparently, are not yet at all adapted to the new economic policy.

Previously, the military bodies of the Soviet Power were mainly the People's Commissariat of Military Affairs and the Cheka. Now a particularly combative role falls to the lot of the People's Commissariat of Justice; Unfortunately, there is no understanding of this on the part of the leaders and main figures of the NKUST.

Intensifying repression against the political enemies of the Soviet government and agents of the bourgeoisie (especially the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries); carrying out this repression by revolutionary tribunals and people's courts in the most rapid and revolutionary expedient manner; the obligatory staging of a number of exemplary (in terms of speed and force of repression; in explaining to the masses, through the courts and through the press, their meaning) trials in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kharkov and several other important centers; influence on people's judges and members of revolutionary tribunals through the party in the sense of improving the functioning of the courts and increasing repression; - all this must be carried out systematically, persistently, persistently<…>

Each member of the NKUST board, each figure in this department should be assessed according to his service record, after a certificate: how many communists have you thrown into prison three times more severely than non-party ones for the same offenses? How many bureaucrats have you thrown into prison for bureaucracy and red tape? How many merchants have you brought under execution or other, not toy (as in Moscow, under the nose of the NKUST) punishment for abusing the NEP?<…>

I suggest you

1) read my letter to all members of the NKUST board;

2) also - at a meeting of 100-200 exclusively communists who practically work in the field of civil, criminal and state law;

3) prohibit, under pain of party liability, from chatting about it (about this letter), because showing our strategy to our enemies is stupid<…>

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

P.S. There should not be the slightest mention of my letter in the press. Let whoever wants to speak behind his signature, without mentioning me, and more specific data!”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 44, pp. 396-400).

IN AND. Lenin - Y.Kh. Peters:

“... With a bribe, etc., etc. The state political administration can and should fight and punish by execution in court. The GPU must enter into an agreement with the People’s Commissariat of Justice and, through the Politburo, issue an appropriate directive to both the People’s Commissariat of Justice and all authorities...”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 196).

IN AND. Lenin - L.B. Kamenev:

“... It is a great mistake to think that the NEP put an end to terror. We will return to terror and economic terror<…>

I would suggest: instructing the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to immediately adopt the following resolution:

In view of the disgrace with the red tape on the deal (such and such) on the purchase of food for soviet rubles, order the State Political Directorate (to be frightened!) to find those responsible for the red tape and imprison for 6 hours those working in Moscow Gubekoso and for 36 hours those working in Vneshtorg (of course, except for the members All-Russian Central Executive Committee: we have almost parliamentary immunity)<…>

No response after 3 hours? The same 4 lines of complaint over the phone.

And idiots walk and talk for two weeks! For this we should rot in prison, and not create confiscations. Muscovites for stupidity for 6 hours of bedbugs. Foreign traders for stupidity plus “central responsibility” for 36 hours of bedbugs”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 44, p. 429).

Letter from V.I. Lenina V.M. Molotov for members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) [the most important passages are given]

"Strictly confidential

We ask that you do not make copies under any circumstances, but that each member of the Politburo (Comrade Kalinin too) make his own notes on the document itself.

To Comrade Molotov for members of the Politburo

... the Black Hundred clergy, led by their leader, are completely deliberately carrying out a plan to give us a decisive battle at this very moment<…>for us, this very moment is not only an exceptionally favorable, but generally the only moment when we can have a 99th out of 100 chance of complete success defeat the enemy completely and secure the positions we need for many decades. It is now and only now, when people are being eaten in starved areas and hundreds, if not thousands of corpses are lying on the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most furious and merciless energy and without stopping to suppress any resistance<…>We must, at all costs, carry out the confiscation of church valuables in the most decisive and fastest manner, in which we can secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles. Without this fund there is no government job in general, no economic construction in particular, and no defense of one’s position in Genoa in particular, is completely unthinkable<…>

One intelligent writer on government issues rightly said that if it is necessary to carry out a series of cruelties in order to achieve a certain political goal, then they must be carried out in the most energetic manner and in the shortest possible time, because the masses of the people will not tolerate prolonged use of cruelty<…>

I imagine the campaign itself to carry out this plan as follows:

Only comrade should officially speak at any event. Kalinin, - never and under no circumstances should Comrade speak either in print or in any other way before the public. Trotsky<…>

Send to Shuya one of the most energetic, intelligent and managerial members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee or other representatives of the central government (better one than several)<…>, so that in Shuya he would arrest as many as possible, no less than several dozen representatives of the local clergy, local philistinism and local bourgeoisie on suspicion of direct or indirect participation in the matter of violent resistance to the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the confiscation of church valuables. Immediately upon completion of this work, he must come to Moscow and personally make a report at a full meeting of the Politburo or before two authorized members of the Politburo. Based on this report, the Politburo will give a detailed directive to the judicial authorities, also verbally, so that the trial against the Shuya rebels who are resisting aid to the starving [as we saw above, no “help to the starving” was intended - this is a fairy tale for judges. – G.Kh.], was carried out with maximum speed and ended with the execution of a very large number of the most influential and dangerous Black Hundreds of the city of Shuya, and, if possible, also not only of this city. and Moscow and several other spiritual centers<…>how larger number If we manage to shoot representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie on this occasion, so much the better<…>

To oversee the fastest and most successful implementation of these measures, appoint immediately at the congress, i.e. at its secret meeting, a special commission with the obligatory participation of Comrade Trotsky and Comrade Kalinin, without any publication about this commission, so that the subordination of all operations to it was ensured and carried out not on behalf of the commission, but in an all-Soviet and all-party manner<…>

I ask Comrade Molotov to try to send this letter to the members of the Politburo round-robin today (without making copies) and ask them to return it to the secretary immediately<…>

(“Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU”, 1990, No. 4, pp. 190-193).

In connection with the letter from the editor of the newspaper “Rabochiy” K.S. Eremeev in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) with a protest against the directive of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) of March 6 to reduce the size of the newspaper, change its character and content V.I. Lenin writes the following letter to V.M. Molotov for members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b):

“To Comrade Molotov for members of the Politburo

I have a letter from Solts, who, based on his experience, speaks out against the Rabochiy newspaper. It serves, they say, only to feed excess writers, without at all creating either a new type of newspaper or a new circle of readers. I think that it would be more correct to close this newspaper, give it a short period of time for liquidation, and use the freed up forces and funds to improve existing newspapers.

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, pp. 216-217).

"T. Kursk!

In my opinion, it is necessary to expand the use of execution (with replacement by deportation abroad). See p. 1 below to all types of activities of the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, etc.;

Find a wording that connects these actions with the international bourgeoisie and its fight against us (bribery of the press and agents, preparations for war, etc.).

Please return quickly with your feedback,

15/V. Lenin"

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 45, p. 189).

“16 – V – 22 Secret

Comrade Osinsky!

In my opinion, the editor of Selskhozyaystvennaya Zhizn should be removed, and Weinstein and Oganovsky should be placed under special supervision. This is my conclusion after reading Agricultural Life No. 34 (75). Show this letter in strict confidence. Yakovenko and Teodorovich (the latter is purely guilty) and return it to me with the addition of information about the editor A.N. Morosanov (?) and two others in more detail. Their experience, etc. in more detail. These are probably the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries, to whom you three “fell” as victims.

What measures are you three taking to ensure this can't happen again?

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, p. 262).

"T. Dzerzhinsky! On the question of the expulsion abroad of writers and professors who help the counter-revolution.

We need to prepare this more carefully. Without preparation we will become stupid. Please discuss such preparation measures.

Convene a meeting of Messing, Mantsev and someone else in Moscow.

Oblige members of the Politburo to devote 2-3 hours a week to reviewing a number of publications and books, checking their execution, demanding written reviews, and ensuring that all non-communist publications are sent to Moscow without delay.

Add reviews of communist writers (Steklov, Olminsky, Skvortsov, Bukharin, etc.).

Collect systematic information about the political experience, work and literary activities of professors and writers.

Entrust all this to a smart, educated and careful person in the GPU.

My reviews of the two St. Petersburg editions:

“New Russia” No. 2. Closed by St. Petersburg comrades.

Isn't it closed early? It needs to be sent to members of the Politburo and discussed more carefully. Who is its editor Lezhnev? From The Day? Is it possible to collect information about him? Of course, not all employees of this magazine are candidates for deportation abroad.”

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 54, pp. 265-266).

"T. Stalin for the Politburo:

The session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee showed the incorrectness of the organization of the composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The vast majority of its members are officials.

I propose that the Politburo make a decision:

It is necessary to recognize that at least 60% of the members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee are workers and peasants who do not hold any positions in the Soviet service; so that at least 67% of the members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee are communists..."

(Lenin, PSS, vol. 45, p. 203).

"T. Stalin!

Regarding the question of the expulsion of Mensheviks, People's Socialists, Cadets, etc. from Russia, I would like to ask a few questions in view of the fact that this operation, which began before my leave, has not been completed even now.

Decisively “eradicate” all the Popular Socialists? Peshekhonov, Myakotin, Gornfeld? Petrishcheva and others. In my opinion, expel everyone. More harmful than any Socialist-Revolutionary, because he is more dexterous.

Also A.N. Potresov, Izgoev and all the employees of The Economist (Ozerov and many, many others). Meki: Rozanov (doctor, cunning), Vigdorchik (Migulo or something like that), Lyubov Nikol Radchenko and her young daughter (according to rumor, the worst enemies of Bolshevism); ON THE. Rozhkov (we need to send him away, he’s incorrigible); S.L. Frank (author of "Methodology"). A commission under the supervision of Mantsev, Messing and others should submit lists and several hundred such gentlemen should be sent abroad mercilessly. We will cleanse Russia for a long time.

I really need to think about Lezhnev (formerly Den): should I expel him? Will always be the most insidious, as far as I can judge from reading his articles.

Ozerov, like all the employees of The Economist, are the most merciless enemies. Get them all out of Russia.

This must be done immediately. By the end of the Socialist Revolutionary process, not later. Arrest several hundred and without announcing a motive - leave, gentlemen!

Pay attention to writers in St. Petersburg (addresses of “New Russian Book”, No. 4, 1922, p. 37) and to the list of private publishing houses (p. 29).

With [communist] greetings Lenin"

(V.I. Lenin, Unknown documents.., 1999, pp. 544-545).

t. Unschlikht!

Kindly order: return to me all the attached papers with notes, who was expelled, who is imprisoned, who (and why) was spared expulsion? Very brief notes on the same paper.

Your Lenin.

Applications

“List of active anti-Soviet intelligentsia (professors)”

Professor of the 1st Moscow University

1. STRATONOV Vsevolod Viktorovich is expelled, at large

2. FOMIN Vasily Emelyanovich deportation cancelled, post com 31/8 based on the petition of Comrade Yakovleva and Bogdanov

Professor of the Moscow Higher Technical School

4 . YASINSKY Vsevolod Ivanovich is expelled, at large

5. BRILLING Nikolai Romanovich is not deported, he is registered with the Counterintelligence Department of the GPU, and is brought to justice for counter-revolution.

6. KUKOLEVSKY Ivan Ivanovich deportation suspended temporarily until receipt of motives for Comrade Bogdanov’s petition

7. ZVORYKIN Vladimir Vasilievich is expelled, at large

Professor of the Petrovsko-Razumovsky Agricultural Academy

8. ARTOBOLEVSKY Ivan Alekseevich is listed before the Revolutionary Tribunal, accused of campaigning against the confiscation of church valuables.

9. USHAKOV is expelled and is free.

Professor of the Institute of Railway Engineers

10. TYAPKIN Nikolay Dmitrievich the case was transferred to KROGPU, i.e. The counterintelligence department of the GPU is being held in custody to bring them to justice for counter-revolutionary activities.

In the case of the Free Economic Society

11. UGRIMOV Alexander Ivanovich is expelled, at large

Professors from various educational institutions

12. OVCHINNIKOV (Kazan) no arrests, no information.

13. Pavel Apollonovich VELIKHOV was transferred to the KROGPU (Counterintelligence Department) for prosecution for counterintelligence, and is being held in custody.

14. LOSKUTOV Nikolai Nikolaevich not wanted

15. TROSHIN (Kazan) not found.

16. NOVIKOV M.M.. is expelled, at large.

17. Ilyin I.A. expelled, free.

List of anti-Soviet professors of the Archaeological Institute

18. USPENSKY Alexander Ivanovich was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Smolensk Revolutionary Tribunal for campaigning against the seizure of church valuables.

19. TSVETKOV Nikolai Nikolaevich is expelled, at large.

20. Vasily Mikhailovich BORDYGIN is expelled, at large

21. KOROBKOV Nikolai Mikhailovich was released as seriously ill, Commission post dated 31/8 22, the last stage of tuberculosis.

General list of active anti-Soviet figures in the case of the Bereg publishing house

22. TRUBETKOY Sergei Evgenievich is expelled, at large

23. FELDSTEIN Mikhail Solomonovich is expelled, at large

List of persons involved in case No. 813 (Abrikosov group)

24. ABRICOSOV is expelled, at large

Vladimir Vladimirovich

25. KUZMIN-KARAVAEV is expelled, at large

Dmitry Vladimirovich

26. BAIKOV Alexey Lvovich is expelled, at large

27. Alexey Dmitrievich ARBUZOV is expelled, at large

List of anti-Soviet agronomists and cooperators

28. RYBNIKOV at the request of the board

Alexander Alexandrovich Narkomzem's deportation was cancelled, an investigation was opened against him

29. Nikolai Ivanovich LYUBIMOV is expelled, at large

30. Ivan Petrovich MATVEEV is expelled, at large

31. ROMANOVSKY Nikolai Pavlovich is expelled, at large

33. Kondratyev N.D. a case was initiated on charges of assisting the Social Revolutionaries, the deportation was temporarily suspended, he was held in custody

34. KILCHEVSKY is expelled, at large

Vladimir Agafonovich

35. BULATOV Alexey Alekseevich is expelled, at large

(Novgorod)

36. SIGIRSKY Alexander Ivanovich is expelled, at large

37. SHISHKIN Matvey Dmitrievich is expelled, too

(Vologda)

38. BAKKAL (left s.r.) is sent, too

39. INFANTS are expelled, too

Nikolay Vasilievich

40. KLEZETSKY (Tver) not wanted

List of doctors

41. ISRAILSON (Eagle) is sent to the Kyrgyz region for 2 years to work in his specialty as a doctor

42. FALIN (Vologda) was sent to Vologda for 2 years to work in his specialty as a doctor

43. ROZANOV (Saratov) is sent to Turkestan to work in his specialty as a doctor

List of anti-Soviet engineers (Moscow)

44. PALCHINSKY Petr Ioakimovich is expelled and is in custody

45. PARSHIN Nikolai Evgrafovich, the deportation was canceled until the issue is clarified with comrade. Steklov and Bogdanov, at large

46. ​​YUSHTIN Ivan Ivanovich expelled, at large

47. WEISBERG not wanted

48. KOZLOV Nikolai Pavlovich not wanted

49. Andrei Vasilievich SAKHAROV was released and the case was closed for secret reasons of the GPU

List of writers

50. FRANK Semyon Ludvigovich is expelled, at large

51. ROSENBERG is expelled, at large

52. KIESEWETTER A.A. expelled, free

53. OZERETSKOVSKY is expelled, at large

Veniamin Sergeevich

54. YUROVSKY is not expelled, Commission post 31/8

Alexander Naumovich 22 at the request of Comrade Vladimirsky

55. OGANOVSKY not wanted

56. AIKHENVALD Yuliy Isaevich is expelled, at large

57. BERDYAEV N.A. expelled, free

58. Ivan Khristoforovich OZEROV suspended the deportation until further notice to clarify the issue with Comrade Malyshev

59. OSORGIN Mikhail Andreevich is expelled, at large

60. MATUSEVICH Joseph Alexandrovich is expelled, at large

61. EFIMOV (professor) not wanted

31/VII – 22

Kamenev L.

D. Kursky

Additional list of anti-Soviet intelligentsia (professorship) (Moscow)

1. KRAVETS Tarichan Pavlovich, the case was transferred to KROGPU (Counterintelligence Department), held accountable for counter-revolutionary actions, is in custody

2. IZGARYSHEV Nikolay Alekseevich has been released from deportation, a formal investigation is being carried out into the merits of his abandonment in the RSFSR

List of writers

3. Vasily Mikhailovich KUDRYAVTSEV is expelled, at large

4. MYAKOTIN Venedikt Aleksandrovich is expelled

5. PESHEKHONOV Alexey Vasilievich is expelled

6. Fyodor Avgustovich STEPUN not wanted

7. CHARNOLUSSKY Vladimir Ivanovich not wanted

8. IZYUMOV Alexander Filaretovich is expelled, at large

L. Kamenev

D. Kursky

31/VII – 22

List of anti-Soviet intelligentsia in Petrograd

1. SOROKIN Pitirim Aleksandrovich arrested[arrested], deported

2. IZGOEV-LANDE A.S. arrested, expelled, at large to liquidate cases

3.ZUBASHEV E.L. ar, expelled, free to liquidate cases

4. BRUCKAS ar, expelled, at large to liquidate cases

5. KOGAN A.S. ar, expelled, free to liquidate cases

6. LUKHOTIN ar, expelled, free to liquidate cases

7. PUMPYANSKY ar, expelled, at large to liquidate cases

8. FROMMETT not wanted

9. ZAMYATIN E.I. ar, the deportation is postponed until further notice (resolution of the commission of Comrade Dzerzhinsky dated 31/8 of this year)

10. PETRISCHEV ar, expelled

11. BULGAKOV S.N. not wanted

12. VOLKOVISSKY N.M. ar, expelled, free to liquidate cases

13. KHARITON Boris Ar, expelled, free to liquidate cases

14. CHADAEV is not wanted

15. KARSAVIN ar, subject to deportation, at large to liquidate cases

16. LOSSKY ar, expelled, free to liquidate cases

17. GUTKIN A.Ya. ar, expelled, free to liquidate cases

18. KANCEL Efim Semenovich deportation suspended pending receipt from comrade. Tsyperovich guarantee and justification for it (post com 31)

19. ZBARSKY David Solomonovich not wanted

20. SADIKOVA Y.N. ar, subject to deportation, at large

21. BRONSHTEIN Isai Evseevich arrest, expelled, at large

22. PAVLOV Pavel Pavlovich not wanted

23. KARGELS Nikolai Konstantinovich ar, subject to deportation, at large

24. Soloveitchik Emmanuel Borisovich not wanted

List of members of the United Council of Professors of Petrograd

25. POLETIKA not wanted

26. Odintsov Boris Nikolaevich ar, expelled, at large

27. LAPSHIN Ivan Ivanovich ar, expelled, at large

28. POLNER Sergei Ivanovich ar, expelled, at large

29. ANTONOVSKAYA Nadezhda Grigorievna not found

30. SELIVANOV Dmitry Fedorovich ar, expelled, at large

31. Frenkel Grigory Ivanovich not wanted

32. OSTROVSKY Andrey Ar, subject to deportation, free

33. Pavel Ilyich BUTOV not wanted

34. VISLOUKH Stanislav Mikhailovich ar, expelled, at large

35. WETZER German Rudolfovich not wanted

36. KORSH not wanted

37. NAROIKO too

38. STEIN, Viktor Moritsovich, according to the resolutions of the commission chaired by Comrade Dzerzhinsky, was released from deportation and left in Petrograd. See special statement

39. SAVICH is put on trial for participation in the Antisov organization, is not sent abroad, is kept in custody

40. BOGOLEPOV A.A. not wanted

41. OSOKIN Vladimir Mikhailovich is expelled, at large

42. BOLSHAKOV Andrey Mikhailovich not wanted

43. GUSAROV Ignatiy Evdokimovich According to the resolution of the commission

44. EREMEEV Grigory Alekseevich under the chairmanship of Comrade

45. EREMEEV Grigory Alekseevich Dzerzhinsky decided

46. ​​TELTEVSKY Alexey Vasilievich to initiate a case on charges of belonging to an anti-Soviet organization. Do not send them abroad, bring everyone to trial. Do not release from arrest.

47. EVDOKIMOV Petr Ivanovich ar, subject to deportation, at large

List of St. Petersburg writers

48. ROZHKOV not wanted

49. GERETSKY Viktor Yakovlevich not wanted

50. CLEMENS is not wanted

51. KROKHMAL Viktor Nikolaevich Exempted from expulsion by the resolution of the commission under the chairmanship of Comrade Dzerzhinsky dated 31/8 of this year. on the basis of his personal letter to Comrade Dzerzhinsky, in which he assures of his loyalty to the Soviet authorities.

L. Kamenev.

D. Kursky.

I. Unshlikht.

Note. According to the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP, a commission chaired by Comrade Dzerzhinsky considered petitions to cancel the deportation of persons considered indispensable in their industry, and about whom the relevant institutions made statements to remain in place.

Deputy Chairman of the GPU G. Yagoda"

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents.., 1999, pp. 550-557).

“Comrade Stalin. Letter for the plenum of the Central Committee.

To correctly assess our disagreement on the issue of Rozhkov, we must keep in mind that we have already raised this issue several times in the Politburo<…>

I suggest:

the first is to send Rozhkov abroad,

secondly, if this does not work (for example, on the grounds that Rozhkov, due to his old age, deserves leniency), then there should be no public discussion of Rozhkov’s statements received under duress. Then we must wait until Rozhkov, at least in a few years, makes a sincere statement in our favor. Until then, I would suggest sending him, for example, to Pskov, creating tolerable living conditions for him, providing him with money and work. But we must keep him under strict supervision, for this man is and will probably be our enemy to the end.

(V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents., 1999, pp. 579-580).

Removal of V.I. Lenin from power. He dictates a letter to N.K. Krupskaya and, at the insistence of the party leadership (formally “as prescribed by doctors”), leaves Moscow forever (Felshtinsky, 1999, p. 290).

LITERATURE

Vert N. The state against its people. Violence, repression and terror in the Soviet Union. – In the book: Courtois S., Werth N. and others. The Black Book of Communism. M., “Three centuries of history”, 1999, p. 61-258.

Katsva L.A. Soviet Russia: the first months of Bolshevik power. - "Story". Weekly appl. to gas “First of September”, 1997, No. 36, p. 6-9; No. 37, p. 1-7;. No. 38, p. 12-16.

Katsva L.A. Civil War in Russia (1918-1921). – in the same place, 1998, No. 22, p. 1-16; No. 23, p. 3-6.

Kozhin Yu.A. Hostages during the civil war in Russia - “History”. Weekly appl. to gas “First of September”, 2000, p. 1-16.

Courtois St., Werth N., Panne J.-L., Paczkowski A., Bartoszek K., Margolin J.-L. The Black Book of Communism. Crimes. Terror. Repression. M., “Three centuries of history, 1999.

IN AND. Lenin and the Cheka. Collection of documents (1917-1922). M., IPL, 1975.

IN AND. Lenin. Unknown documents. 1891-1922 M., "Russian political encyclopedia"(ROSSPEN), 1999.

Latyshev A.G. Declassified Lenin. M., “March”, 1996.

Lenin V.I. Introduction to the proclamation of the Don Committee of the RSDLP “To Russian Citizens” - PSS, vol. 6, p. 371.

Lenin V.I. All for the fight against Denikin! (Letter from the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolsheviks) to party organizations) - PSS, vol. 39, pp. 44-63.

Lenin V.I. State and revolution. The doctrine of Marxism about the state and the tasks of the proletariat in the revolution. – PSS, vol. 33, p. 1-120.

Lenin V.I. Report [at the III Congress of the RS-DRP] on the participation of social democracy in the Provisional Revolutionary Government. – PSS, vol. 10, p. 126-141).

Lenin V.I. Tasks of the units of the revolutionary army. – PSS, vol. 11, p. 339-343.

Lenin V.I. To the slogans. – PSS, vol. 34, p. 10-17.

Lenin V.I. How the bourgeoisie uses renegades. – PSS, vol. 39, p. 182-194.

Lenin V.I. About the fighting agreement for the uprising. – PSS, vol. 9, p. 274-282.

Lenin V.I. About hunger (Letter to St. Petersburg workers) - PSS, vol. 36, p. 357-364.

Lenin V.I. About dual power. – PSS, vol. 31, p. 145-148.

Lenin V.I. An explanation of the law regarding fines levied on workers in factories and factories. – PSS, vol. 2, p. 15-60.

Lenin V.I. The victory of the Cadets and the tasks of the workers’ party – PSS, vol. 12, p. 271-352.

Lenin V.I. The draft program of our party. – PSS, vol. 4, p. 213-239).

Lenin V.I. Draft resolution on terror [for the Second Congress of the RS-DRP]. – PSS, vol. 7, p. 251.

Lenin V.I. Proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky. – PSS, vol. 50, p. 235-338.

Lenin V.I. Revolutionary adventurism. – PSS, vol. 6, p. 377-398.

Lenin V.I. Where to begin? – PSS, vol. 5, p. 5-13.

Lenin V.I. Lessons from the Commune. – PSS, vol. 16, p. 451-454.

Lenin V.I. Lessons from the Moscow Uprising. – PSS, vol. 13, p. 369-377).

Lenin V.I. Lessons from the revolution. – PSS, vol. 19, p. 416-424.

Lenin V.I. What are “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats? (Response to Russian Wealth articles against Marxists). – PSS, vol. 1, p. 125-346.

Lenin V.I. To the Combat Committee under the St. Petersburg Committee of October 16 (29), 1905 - PSS, vol. 11, p. 336-338.

Lenin V.I. Letter from I.F. Armand. Beginning of 1914 – PSS, vol. 48, p. 238.

Lenin V.I. Telegram to the Military Revolutionary Committee [dated November 16 (29), 1917] - PSS, vol. 50, p. 7.

Lenin V.I. G.P. Blagonravov and V.D. Bonch-Bruevich [from December 8 (21), 1917] – PSS, vol. 50, p. 18.

Lenin V.I. Speech at the Meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet with representatives of food organizations on January 14 (27), 1918 - PSS, vol. 35, p. 311.

Lenin V.I. Speech before agitators sent to the provinces on January 23 (February 5), 1918 - PSS, vol. 35, p. 323-327.

Lenin V.I. Report of the Council of People's Commissars at the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers, Peasants, Soldiers and Red Army Deputies on July 5, 1918 - PSS, vol. 36, p. 491-513.

Lenin V.I. Telegram to the Penza Provincial Executive Committee dated August 9, 1918 - PSS, vol. 50, p. 143-144.

Lenin V.I. Letter from V.V. Kuraev, E.B. Bosch, A.E. Mrnkin from August 11, 1918 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1899-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 246.

Lenin V.I. Conversation with American journalist Lincoln Steffens in March 1919 [fragment]. – Latyshev, 1996, p. 205.

Lenin V.I. Telegram from M.V. Frunze dated August 30, 1919 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents. 1891-1922 M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 297.

Lenin V.I. Letter from L.D. To Trotsky from October 22, 1919 - In the book: V.I. Lenin Unknown documents. 1891-1922 M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 304.

Lenin V.I. Note to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (December 1919). – In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents. 1891-1922 M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 314.

Lenin V.I. Speech at the IV Conference of Provincial Extraordinary Commissions on February 6, 1920 - PSS, vol. 40, p. 113-121.

Lenin V.I. Note from E.M. Sklyansky dated February 24, 1920 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 329.

Lenin V.I. Telegram from I.T. Smilge and G.K. Ordzhonikidze dated February 28, 1920 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 330.

Lenin V.I. Speech at the III All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions on April 7, 1920 - PSS, vol. 40, p. 299-313.

Lenin V.I. Resolution on imposing a penalty on the head of the Gorki sanatorium E.Ya. Weber dated June 14, 1920 - PSS, vol. 41, p. 151.

Lenin V.I. Note to the Fuel Department of the Moscow Soviet of Deputies. – PSS, vol. 51, p. 216.

Lenin V.I. Note to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated June 24, 1920 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 349.

Lenin V.I. Telegram to the Revolutionary Committee of the Ural Region and the Saratov Provincial Executive Committee dated August 2, 1920 - PSS, vol. 51, p. 347-348.

Lenin V.I. Tasks of the Youth Unions (Speech at the III All-Russian Congress of the Russian Communist Youth Union on October 2, 1920) - PSS, vol. 41, p. 298-318.

Lenin V.I. Note from E.M. Sklyansky (late October - November 1920) - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 399.

Lenin V.I. note from E.M. Sklyansky (late October - November 1920) - in the same place, p. 400.

Lenin V.I. Final word on the report of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on foreign and domestic policy on December 23, 1920 - PSS, vol. 42, p. 172-177.

Lenin V.I. Letter from G.M. Krzhizhanovsky (late December 1920) - PSS, vol. 52, p. 38-39.

Lenin V.I. Note from V.M. To Molotov from May 19, 1921 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 438.

IN AND. Lenin. Note to an unidentified person dated June 5, 1918 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 238-239.

Lenin V.I. Report on the tactics of the RCP at the Third Congress of the Communist International on July 5, 1921 - PSS, vol. 44, p. 34-54.

Lenin V.I. Report on the tactics of the RCP at the III Congress of the Communist International 5 Lenin V.I. Note from V.A. Smolyaninov dated July 27, 1921 - PSS, vol. 53, p. 70.

Lenin V.I. Note to the Small Council of People's Commissars (between August 8 and 11, 1921) - PSS, vol. 53, p. 106-107).

Lenin V.I. Letter from I.V. Stalin and all members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated August 26, 1921 - PSS, vol. 53, p. 140-142.

Lenin V.I. Letter to Y.A. Berzin dated September 8, 1921 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., RSSPEN, 1999, p. 468-469.

Lenin V.I Telegram to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Belarusian SSR dated October 10, 1921 - PSS, vol. 53, p. 254.

IN AND. Lenin. Letter from G.V. Chicherin dated October 24, 1921 - “Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1990, No. 4, p. 185.

Lenin V.I. On the tasks of the People's Commissariat of Justice in the conditions of the new economic policy. Letter from D.I. Kursky dated February 20, 1922 - PSS, vol. 44, p. 396-400.

Lenin V.I. Letter from V.M. Molotov for members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated March 19, 1922 - “Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1990, No. 4, p. 190-193.

Lenin V.I. To Comrade Molotov for members of the Politburo, March 23, 1922 - PSS, vol. 54, p. 216-217.

Lenin V.I. Additions to the draft Introductory Law to the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and letters from D.I. Kursky dated May 15, 1922 - PSS, vol. 45, p. 189.

Lenin V.I. Letter from I.V. Stalin for the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) with a draft resolution on the composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of May 23, 1922 - PSS, vol. 45, p. 203.

Lenin V.I. Note from I.S. Unshlikht dated September 17, 1922 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 550-557.

Lenin V.I. Letter from I.V. To Stalin from December 13, 1922 - In the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922. – M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 579-580.

Lenin V.I. and Krestinsky N.N. Telephone message from G.E. Zinoviev dated May 21, 1919 - in the book: V.I. Lenin. Unknown documents 1891-1922, M., ROSSPEN, 1999, p. 289.

Rossi J. Guide to the Gulag in two parts. Ed. 2nd, additional M., Prosvet, 1991.

Solzhenitsyn A.I. GULAG Archipelago.

Felshtinsky Yu.G. Leaders in law. M., TERRA - Book Club, 1999.

The PSS erroneously states “later October 3(16).” But previous document dated by Lenin himself on October 16 (of course, according to the “old style”); thus, this document was written later than October 16 (29).

The cited source states: “written later than December 18, 1913.” Considering that this is the old style, the new style will be later than December 31, 1913, i.e. early 1914

But if all the speculators are “shot on the spot,” then where can the “wealthy part of the population” buy bread, where there are those same “children, women and old people” whose well-being the communists supposedly cared so much about?

Military equipment and ammunition necessary for the needs of the front.

The text I underlined in PSS V.I. Lenin (vol. 51, p. 68) was omitted.

The head of the anti-communist armed formations S.N. Bey-Bulak-Balakhovich.

A contemptuous name given by communist bosses to the All-Russian Committee for Famine Relief after the name of its leaders: E.D. Kuskova and N.M. Kishkina.

Still, in some cases it is impossible to do without comments. The Communists did not tolerate any interference in their affairs, and therefore dispersed this Committee, because “these feeding hands were not the hands that could be allowed to feed the hungry” (Solzhenitsyn, 1973, p. 46). But the main thing is that all these uncontrolled committees prevented them from using the funds they received in their own way, and not helping some starving people. November 27, 1995 A.N. Yakovlev reported: “In the early 20s, under the pretext of helping the starving people of the Volga region, church valuables worth two and a half billion gold rubles were confiscated. However, according to our data, only one million [!!! – G.Kh.]. The rest of the money ended up in the foreign accounts of party bosses or was directed to the needs of the world revolution” (Latyshev, 1996, p. 171).

He became the destiny of Russia, but he also had a PERSONAL destiny

It is the word “fate” that could express better than any other word the essence of the thick work of the English historian Robert Service, “Lenin. An Experience in Biography.”
There is no need to demonize Lenin, writes an impartial scientist, all of whose statements are confirmed by written evidence from contemporaries of the events.

Neither in the Russian Empire, nor especially abroad, did anyone seriously think that the Bolsheviks would be able to seize power in Russia, much less retain it. If the Balkan spark had not ignited into the fire of a world war, the October Revolution would never have happened. The war was far from going well for Russia. The economy, government, political and social life fell into disarray - and only this gave Lenin a chance. The “strategic genius” of the leader of the world revolution and the “only true teaching” have nothing to do with it. Historical truth is that Lenin became Lenin to a large extent by the will of circumstances - he simply knew how to use opportunities and turn circumstances to his advantage, and before that he knew how to discern this advantage. constituent Assembly would have fallen without Lenin, but it was Lenin who, taking advantage of the moment, seized power and established a dictatorship in the country.

Yes, he professed a “scientific approach” to revolutionary activity and, for the sake of “teaching,” betrayed his amazing instinct. But at the same time, he constantly adjusted his theories and adjusted the concept of the proletarian revolution to the circumstances with which he had to deal in practice. He sometimes simply pulled Marx by the ears to what he was doing.

For example, military defeat in Poland forced Lenin to abandon - no less than - his plans to conquer Europe! From the very beginning, Lenin did not plan to build socialism in isolation, he wanted to carry out a proletarian revolution on a European scale and, defending his plans to the party, referred to Marxist theory: a revolution “in a single country,” he said, cannot win completely. Actually, this point of view was shared by many Bolshevik leaders - the presence of “fraternal countries” in any case would be useful or even necessary, and isolation was too deplorable a prospect: already in 1918, Russia actually had neither an integral territory nor a single power, no normal economy. In 1918, a campaign in Europe was impossible: a powerful German army stood in the way of the Bolsheviks. By the time the Teutonic war machine collapsed, the Bolsheviks were already mired in the Civil War. But by 1920" internal enemy" were defeated, and Lenin was ready to "take capital by the throat." In July 1920, the Red Army entered Poland, and Lenin was already loudly talking about the "Sovietization" of Romania and Hungary, arguing about the principles of the European Socialist Federation.

The “Miracle over the Vistula” destroyed the European Socialist Federation in one day - the army of Jozef Pilsudski completely defeated the Stalin-Trotsky armada and drove the Reds back into Russia.

Lenin had the tact not to publicly abandon the idea of ​​exporting the revolution, but he clearly saw that the time had not come for the proletarian revolution in Europe and that revolution could not be brought to Europe even with bayonets. Lenin realized that European money and “brains” needed to be taken differently, he abruptly changed course and proposed a new economic policy (NEP), which began with the fact that the Soviet government began to cooperate with foreign capitalists and even began to give away land in concessions.

He was not a real Marxist, and his passion for revolution did not begin with Marxism. In my youth - and always! -- Lenin was strongly influenced by the Narodniks and highly valued terror and terrorism.
As a politician, he was first and foremost a gambler. A determined, courageous and intelligent player who quickly learned from experience.

Parents and children. Blanks and Ulyanovs
Lenin was not a Russophobe, and his actions were not at all dictated by hatred of Russians and the desire to destroy Russia. In fact, Lenin always considered himself Russian and did not attach of great importance national differences between people. Several generations of his ancestors were brought up in the traditions of Russian culture and sought to benefit Russia and the people.

Maria Alexandrovna's paternal grandfather was called Moshko Blank. He was a wonderful man. He was born and raised in the Jewish town of Starokonstantinov, but the local customs were not to his taste. He quarreled and sued his neighbors many times, they did not like him, and once he was even accused of arson (the charge was not proven in court). In the end, Moshko left for Zhitomir, where he began a new life. He did not send his children to cheder, but took them to a public school, where they were taught Russian and introduced to Russian culture. Subsequently, Moshko finally broke with the faith of his fathers and himself was baptized into Christianity. Moshko wanted to take a worthy position in society and persistently achieved this.

His children inherited these traits from him: perseverance, determination, strength of character. Moshko Blank's two sons received a university education and became doctors. The youngest, Alexander (Srul), married Lutheran Anna Grosshopf from St. Petersburg (Anna’s mother was Swedish, her father was German, but both lived in Russia) and gave birth to six children: five daughters and a son, Dmitry. Having become a widower (Anna Grosshopf died before reaching forty), Alexander Blank welcomed into his home the sister of his late wife, Catherine von Essen (also a widow), who offered her help in raising the children. Soon these two became close friends, they even wanted to get married, hiding the fact that Catherine was Anna Blank’s sister (such marriages were not allowed). It was not possible to hide the relationship, and Alexander Blank and Catherine von Essen were denied marriage, but this did not stop them from living together until death separated them. It was Catherine who acquired for the Kokushkino family the estate where she had previously lived with her husband Konstantin. Soon after the family moved to Kokushkino, the Blanks’ only son, Dmitry, committed suicide. Now we can only guess about the reasons, but it is possible that he (Dmitry studied at the university) could not withstand the burden of expectations and hopes that his family, striving to take a worthy position in society, placed on him.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov was from Astrakhan. His father - a tailor by profession - was quite wealthy man and lived in a two-story stone house. The ethnic origin of the Ulyanovs is not clear. It is believed that they were Russians, descendants of peasants who came to Astrakhan from the Nizhny Novgorod lands in the 18th century. Some of Nikolai Ulyanov’s ancestors could have belonged to one of the numerous Volga region peoples, for example, the Chuvash or Mordovians, but Nikolai was already Russian in language, faith and way of life.

In the family of Ilya Nikolaevich and Maria Alexandrovna they talked about the “Tatar blood” of the Ulyanovs, thinking that it had already “mixed in” in Astrakhan, where there was always a busy crossroads of trade routes and a gateway from Europe to Asia. Perhaps Ilya Nikolaevich’s mother was of Asian origin, about whom almost nothing is known (they don’t even know her name for sure - either her name was Anna, or Alexandra).

The Ulyanovs, like the Blanks, wanted a better future for their children - to give them a real education and a position in bourgeois society. Ilya Nikolaevich graduated from a gymnasium in Astrakhan and then entered Kazan University (after the death of his father, Ilya’s education was paid for by his older brother Vasily). After leaving the university, he went to teach at the Penza Institute of Nobility and there he met Maria Alexandrovna Blank (she lived in Penza with her sister Anna, who was married to the director of the Institute of Nobility). Ilya Nikolaevich and Maria Alexandrovna discovered common interests and common views on life. Both highly valued knowledge and education, spoke about the need for enlightenment and sought to benefit the people and society. They got married in Penza in August 1863.

Ilya Nikolaevich did not limit his interests pedagogical activity- he read a lot, followed the scientific and cultural life of Russia and Europe, was seriously interested in meteorology and conducted weather observations.

In his profession, Ulyanov always adhered to the highest standards - he made very high demands not only on the knowledge of students, but also on the knowledge and skills of the teachers themselves. He promoted those who were capable and enthusiastic, but never turned a blind eye to any sins of his charges, who proudly bore the nickname “Ulyanovites.” Ilya Nikolaevich did a lot for public education in the Simbirsk province.

Maria Alexandrovna and Ilya Nikolaevich completely passed on their thirst for knowledge, taste for intellectual life and educational inclinations to their children.
In June 1874, Ulyanov was appointed director of public schools and given the rank of state councilor (he was supposed to be called “His Excellency”). The Ulyanovs took a place in high city society.

Neither Maria nor Ilya Ulyanov were in any way against the tsarist power; they were loyal subjects of Alexander II and strongly supported his liberal reforms. In their way of life, they also did not differ from the rest of the Simbirsk nobles and bourgeoisie: they kept servants, hired workers (to prepare firewood, for example)... During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-78, the director of public schools, state councilor Ulyanov, showed a patriotic impulse: he collected donations for the care of wounded soldiers and was awarded the Order of Stanislav, first degree, which he accepted with gratitude.

And yet the Ulyanovs had a critical view of Russia. They associated themselves with new Russia, enlightened and free, armed with scientific knowledge and possessing a reasonable and liberal social order. They did not identify themselves with the old Russia, noble-peasant, rural, drunken and illiterate, governed arbitrarily.

The Ulyanovs believed that reforms would make Russia a European country. They themselves lived in a Western manner and became familiar with European culture. We studied languages ​​(German, French) and taught them to children. They loved music and played a lot. Followed all the news cultural life Europe: music, literature, art, philosophy, science.

Of course, great hopes were placed on the children in this family; serious goals were set for the children. And the children felt the weight of great expectations. So, the eldest daughter Anna cried and begged her mother for permission not to go to the gymnasium: she was a capable girl and studied with children a year older than her, so from time to time she could not withstand the academic load, suffered from headaches and insomnia.

Volodya is the third child in the Ulyanov family. In the first years of his life, the boy’s behavior alarmed and frightened his parents. Sister Anna wrote that he was very noisy and loud. It developed slowly and constantly demanded attention. Volodya started walking at the same time as his sister Olga, who was a year and a half younger. And if Olga, having fallen, got up without outside help and continued to walk, then Volodya, finding himself on the floor, began to hit his head on the floor and scream loudly, calling for help.

Maria Alexandrovna in those days wondered whether the boy was born mentally disabled. In addition, the midwife who delivered the Ulyanovs’ third child said, looking at the baby, that he would grow up either to be a man of extraordinary intelligence or a complete fool.
However, Volodya remained a brawler in the family forever. He was the noisiest, the most mischievous and the most aggressive of all the children.

But in the gymnasium Volodya behaved modestly. He had neither friendship nor enmity with anyone, was not interested in anyone and expected the same attitude towards himself from others. He was distinguished by an ironic - even sarcastic - attitude towards the reality of the gymnasium and a stubborn fighting spirit. He himself was not a bully, but he answered any challenge and was not afraid of a fight. When one boy began to break his pencils, Vladimir grabbed him by the collar and forced him to stop.

Already in the first grades, Volodya had the ability, unusual for his age, to evaluate what was worth doing, what would be useful, and gave up “unnecessary and empty” activities. At the age of nine he stopped studying music, gave up drawing (and he also had wonderful artistic ability) - even then he was interested in something else in life.

At the age of nine, Volodya Ulyanov almost died: having gone fishing with his friend Kolya Nefedev, he fell into a quagmire on a muddy river bank (he was hunting for frogs), the boy was rapidly being sucked into the swamp. A worker from the distillery came running to the children’s screams (friends were fishing right next to the factory fence) and pulled out Volodya, who had already sunk into the swamp mud up to his chest. History has not preserved the name of this worker.

Another way?
After the execution of Alexander, the Ulyanovs were ostracized in the city: the very thought of regicide conspirators aroused horror and disgust among the townsfolk. Only two or three families in the whole city did not refuse to meet the Ulyanovs (Ilya Nikolaevich did not live to see the terrible events - he died a year and a half before Sasha’s arrest). The family of the traitor to the throne was expelled from society, the Ulyanovs were deprived of the respect and position that they had so long and persistently sought, which they deserved from any point of view. At the gymnasium, students and teachers bullied Olga.

Ilya Nikolaevich was the son of a shoemaker. Whatever his talents and merits, the local nobles - aristocrats in the twelfth generation - looked down on him. The Ulyanovs always understood this and, perhaps, that’s why they demanded so much from their children. And all the Ulyanovs’ hopes that one day their descendants would occupy a truly worthy position in society collapsed in an instant...

The common legend that Volodya, after the execution of his brother, proclaimed: “We will go a different way,” represents the reality “exactly the opposite.” Soviet historians took this episode from the memoirs of Maria Ilyinichna - she wrote them after Lenin’s death, and meanwhile, when Sasha was executed, the girl was only eight years old.

Quite different famous phrase Volodya sounds in the memoirs of Vera Kashkadamova - one of the few friends who did not abandon the Ulyanovs. Kashkadamova recalled that Volodya always tried to distract the younger children from their sad experiences and played lotto, charades and other games with them. When the conversation returned to Sasha (and this inevitably happened again and again), Volodya never expressed any condemnation and once said this: “So he had to do this, he could not go the other way.”

However, Soviet historiography is apparently right in that it was with this phrase that Vladimir Ulyanov’s path to the revolution began. Although in the last years of Sasha’s life he and Volodya were not in the best better relations, the tragic end of his older brother, who was once an example and an idol, apparently made Vladimir think about why his brother gave his life, why he “couldn’t go the other way.” Just a few years after the execution of Alexander, Vladimir Ulyanov became close in St. Petersburg with populist, terrorist revolutionaries, and he did not immediately come to the “only true teaching” to which his followers assigned his name.

Lenin destroyed royal power not only because he hated tsarism. No, ever since the Ulyanovs became pariahs in the city that had previously loved them, he hated the entire Russian middle class, the inhabitants, the bourgeoisie. He took revenge on the “old regime,” the people and relationships on which old Russia stood.

In this sense, the story of Vladimir Ardashev is noteworthy, cousin Lenin. Vladimir Ulyanov spent his summer holidays with Ardashev in Kokushkin, they maintained relations in mature years— The Ardashevs visited the Ulyanovs when they lived in exile. And in the summer of 1918, the Bolsheviks shot Ardashev, who was completely innocent of anything before the new government, as a “bourgeois” (Vladimir had the misfortune of being a lawyer). And the news of this did not upset Ilyich very much. Cousin Ardashev found himself on the other side of the barricades - and the “dictatorship of the proletariat” was more important for Lenin than any family ties.

Lenin generally had a strange sentimentality. He almost never showed any tenderness to his neighbors and did not confess his love to anyone. But he almost hysterically adored people he had never met - his revolutionary heroes. In his youth, Vladimir even had a little album with photographs of his idols, which he took with him into Siberian exile. The album contained several photographs of revolutionaries exiled to hard labor, and two portraits of Chernyshevsky.

Lenin was not a brilliant speaker; in fact, he always had difficulty speaking in public. He was a fanatic of the pen and the library: he read and wrote. There were many much better speakers in those years, and the recognized stars of the platform were Alexander Kerensky and Leon Trotsky.

In politics, Lenin never allowed sentimentality and hated its manifestation. But, like all people, he needed heroes and always wanted to be able to turn to the VISUAL image of his hero. He felt a strong emotional attachment to his heroes, and one of these heroes was the Revolution itself - his romance and his destiny.

Love for revolution and women in Lenin's life
Vladimir Ulyanov's first novels date back to the time of his studies in St. Petersburg - before, in Simbirsk, he, apparently, simply could not communicate with women (not from the family circle), because he was very upset by the loss of his father and brother and all the dramatic changes in life families.

In St. Petersburg, twenty-three-year-old Volodya hit on the young beauty Apollinaria Yakubova, a friend of Olga Ulyanova at the Higher Women's Courses. She reciprocated his feelings. In 1894, they met in Nizhny, and, according to sister Anna’s remarks, the feeling between them was alive even in 1897, when Vladimir went into exile in Siberia. Volodya called Apollinaria Yakubova the Cup. When he left the House of Pre-trial Detention, Kubochka was waiting for him at the prison gates, she rushed to him, kissed him, laughing and crying at the same time (this is how Anna Ulyanova remembered the events).

But Apollinaria Yakubova was not the only one who showed interest in Ulyanov. When Vladimir ended up in the House of Pre-trial Detention (December 1895), Nadezhda Krupskaya went to stand under the windows of the prison with Yakubova.

Many people wonder whether the Siberian wedding of Lenin and Krupskaya was simply a political move? Anna Ulyanova says that it was Nadya who proposed marriage to Volodya when he went into exile, and at first he refused. Then, somewhere at the end of 1897, Lenin changed his mind and called Nadezhda Krupskaya to him as his bride.

It seems that he would still prefer to see Yakubova nearby - a beauty and a convinced revolutionary, a woman about whom, according to Anna’s recollections, he always spoke with great tenderness. But, apparently, she has already lost interest in him.

Did he really want Krupskaya to be with him? Lenin and Krupskaya consciously rejected normal bourgeois relations in the family; they perceived their union first and foremost as cooperation for the cause of the revolution. In general, the traditional understanding of marriage implied too many things that were unpleasant for a revolutionary: tradition, religion, home and hoarding, the wife’s submission to her husband... Russian Marxists did not like this. According to Krupskaya’s definition, they were “smarter” than their foreign comrades and replaced marriage more open relationship. Well, Russian Marxists were very inspired by Chernyshevsky’s anti-bourgeois novel “What is to be done?” and the ideas of the philosopher Pisarev, also completely anti-bourgeois and “anti-family” (it is no coincidence that Lenin first gained fame as the author of a work called the famous novel by Chernyshevsky. - Ed.).

And yet, even if these two never expressed in front of others the feelings that connected them, it is obvious that Lenin and Krupskaya in 1897 were quite pleasant to each other and believed that in the foreseeable future it would be convenient and good for them to live and work together. So, Nadezhda, exiled to Ufa, asked permission to visit Ulyanov as a bride, and when she came to Volodya in Shushenskoye, they quickly got married so as not to be separated again.

In 1910, in Paris, thirty-year-old Ulyanov met Inessa Armand and fell in love. Inessa - by that name everyone knew her - was then 36, she was engaged in Marxist work and was already the mother of five children and a widow.

As a child, Inessa, the daughter of a Frenchman and an Englishwoman, lived in Russia, married Alexander Armand, gave birth to five children, but then the marriage practically broke up when Inessa entered into a relationship with her husband’s brother Vladimir. This love was, however, short-lived: Vladimir died of tuberculosis, and Inessa left with three children for Europe, where Alexander Armand sent them maintenance.
Inessa began doing subversive work back in Russia. In Paris she joined the Bolsheviks. Judging by archival photographs, Inessa Armand was very beautiful.

The relationship between Lenin and Inessa developed gradually. Later, in letters to Lenin, Inessa spoke very eloquently about those days. She wrote that she was “terribly afraid.” I wanted to see him, but I didn’t have the strength to approach him; it seemed better to die on the spot. And only in Longjumeau, when she began to help Lenin with translations, did she calm down somewhat. Inessa wrote to him that “she wasn’t in love then, but she already loved her very much.”

Lenin's response letters to Inessa from those years have not survived: in 1914, when their passion began to weaken, he asked Inessa to return his letters to him, obviously in order to destroy them. But none of Lenin’s relatives had any doubt that there was a full-fledged affair between him and Inessa Armand in 1910-12.

The French Marxist Karl Rapoport left us a poetic description of a conversation between Vladimir and Inessa in a Parisian cafe: “Lenin could not take his burning Mongolian eyes off this little French girl.”

In September 1911, Inessa Armand settled on Marie-Rose Street in a house next to the Ulyanovs. Krupskaya and Armand, obviously, never felt any enmity towards each other. They worked together at the “party school” in Longjumeau, they were at ease with each other. In addition, both Ulyanovs, who suffered from being childless, were very pleased by the presence of Inessa’s children. Volodya and Nadya behaved with them like uncle and aunt - both in Paris, when they lived in neighboring houses on Rue Marie-Rose, and then, years later, in Moscow.

The love for Inessa was deep and strong. Perhaps those years in Paris were the happiest time in Lenin's life. Ilyich, who was always distinguished by a hot-tempered and irritable disposition, a tendency to scandal and a heightened perception of events, gave the impression of a calm and happy person in those days.

During the World War, Inessa had to leave France for Switzerland - first to Montreux, then - at the insistence of Lenin, who wanted Inessa to be closer - to Bern (the Ulyanovs lived there). The Ulyanovs and Armand resumed their former lifestyle, their “family of three.” As before in Paris, the three went on picnics and country walks, helping each other with their work. Each of them hated sitting idle: Lenin honed the language of his speeches and articles, Nadya studied Italian, and Inessa sewed and read books about feminism. In January 1915, Inessa moved to a mountain village and there, far from the Ulyanovs, she wrote a short draft of an article on feminism and freedom of love, which she sent to Lenin. One of the theses of the article caused objections from Lenin - precisely the very demand for “freedom in love”: he called this demand “not proletarian, but bourgeois.” Lenin invited Inessa to think about “the objective logic of class relations in matters of love” and ended his answer with a friendly greeting in clumsy English: “Friendly shake hands.”

Inessa realized that the background to this criticism was Lenin’s hostility to the idea that a woman is free to establish and break off close relationships with men at any time. And she wrote back to him that he meant “freedom of betrayal,” while she wrote about freedom of love. It is quite obvious that this discussion of women’s rights was also a discussion (in absentia, in writing, which is important) of their relationship and the break in 1912, initiated by Lenin. In the next letter, Inessa spoke in the sense that short and fleeting passion is better and purer than marital kissing without love. Lenin accepted the challenge. He agreed that kisses without love are “dirty,” but why, he asked, should they be contrasted with “passion” and not love, and why “fleeting”? So Lenin not only once again declared the nature of his feelings for Inessa, but he also defended his loyalty to Nadezhda, emphasizing that there was nothing “dirty” in their union, and that they meant a lot to each other, even if their actual marriage relationship had ended (it is known , that over the years Lenin increasingly valued Krupskaya’s opinion and increasingly sought her approval and support). And here Lenin seems to reproach Inessa, who in her youth did not deprive herself of the pleasures of male society, for sexual promiscuity. He is for long-term, “serious” relationships.

Inessa still loved him. And he, apparently, just “continued to love” and even in letters he already called her not by “you”, but by “you”. And yet, sincere love for Inessa did not dry out in Lenin until the end of his days, and her death, in the opinion of many, accelerated the end of Lenin himself.

In 1920, Inessa returned from a trip to France with the Red Cross and became seriously ill. Having barely recovered from her illness, she became involved in the work of the second congress of the Comintern, and it was a very heavy load: simultaneous translation, participation in discussions... She fell ill again from overwork, and Lenin advised her to go to a sanatorium. Not to France, where they could have been arrested. Better - to Norway or Holland. And even better - to the Caucasus: they say, he will order that she be well taken care of in the Soviet sanatorium. Inessa went to Kislovodsk with her sixteen-year-old son Andrei. This trip turned out to be fatal - cholera was raging in the Caucasus, Inessa became infected and died on September 24, 1920.

Before her death, she made several notes in a notebook. Their meaning was that her soul had been dying for a long time and she only had warm feelings for her children and for “V.I.”, only these people maintained her interest in life.

Lenin was obviously crushed by grief. At the funeral, Nadezhda Konstantinovna supported him by the arm. Lenin's deep grief made an indelible impression on his friends and comrades. Everyone noted that after Inessa’s death, Ilyich changed. They said that if Inessa had been alive, Lenin would not have died so soon.

Perhaps he denied himself the happiness of being next to Inessa all his life for the sake of the main cause of his life - for the sake of the revolution, just as he refused much in life for this. But when Inessa passed away, and his life was so suddenly empty...

Who is Lenin?

Under the pseudonym N. Lenin, a brochure by V.I. was published in 1901 by the Stuttgart publishing house. Ulyanov’s “What is to be done?”, by which Russian Marxists began to recognize him (the book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia,” signed under the pseudonym V. Ilyin, was not successful and did not bring fame).

Until 1917, Lenin used many more pseudonyms, but he was already known mainly as Lenin, and after the revolution he “rebaptized” completely.
But in general it is absurd to talk about any kind of fame of Lenin - especially about his “leading role in the revolution” - before the twenties. In 1917, when Ilyich returned to Russia from emigration, very few “professional Marxists” remembered his name and knew him by sight. And in civilian life, no one went into battle for Lenin: the people did not know this name at all (and, it turns out, all the stories about walkers and red commanders “with Lenin in their head” are fairy tales. - Ed.). Lenin gained fame among the broad masses only with the beginning of the NEP, which saved the Bolsheviks from death (in 1920, the Soviet regime was experiencing an acute crisis and would have fallen if Lenin had not proposed a radical change of course), and the country from a new great turmoil and blood.

The history of the Soviet campaign against Europe
"Soviet Socialist Republic of Germany"...

In the spring of 1920, Jozef Pilsudski - the de facto head of Poland and the Polish supreme commander - decided to take away from Russia the lands that once belonged to Poland, and marched on Kyiv, which he entered on May 7.

The leadership of Soviet Russia was seized with panic. By exerting all their might and with the help of former tsarist generals and officers, who were loudly called for help for the first time, the Soviets managed to push Pilsudski back into Poland.

Negotiations for peace and the establishment of a permanent border began, mediated by the British Foreign Secretary. And it was then that Lenin decided that the hour of bourgeois Europe had struck. And he ordered an attack on Warsaw.

Lenin felt that he was one step away from fulfilling the dream of his whole life - Poland was staggering and was about to fall, and there it would be possible to begin the “Sovietization” of neighboring countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania... And further, further... In Smolny in July 1920 hosted the second congress of the Comintern. A large map of Europe hung in the hall, and on it red flags marked the advance of the armies of Trotsky and Stalin across the territory of bourgeois Poland; Lenin spoke of the “European socialist revolution” next to this map. Lenin advised the Italian comrades who came to the congress, upon returning to their homeland, not to hesitate and to quickly start a revolution in Milan and Turin...

It is known how the Red Army's campaign in Europe ended in 1920. After the “miracle over the Vistula” - the complete defeat of the Reds on the outskirts of Warsaw - Trotsky and Stalin fled from Pilsudski almost to Smolensk, and Lenin hastily asked for peace. The world revolution failed, and the Kremlin dreamer was not destined to see the “Sovietization” of Europe.

Author: Victor GENERALOV Lev Kolodny LENIN WITHOUT MAKE-UP The appearance of the leader in Broadswords “Time - I’m starting a story about Lenin.” V. Mayakovsky. Lenin appears in the image of a St. Petersburg worker in a hairy wig under a cap, clean-shaven, using forged documents in the name of Konstantin Petrovich Ivanov in a photograph taken in August 1917. He looked so unrecognizable when the “sleuths of the Provisional Government” unsuccessfully hunted for him, as they write in the history textbooks of the USSR. Wearing another cap and clothes lying around, with his cheek bandaged with a dirty rag, looking like a tramp, Ilyich unexpectedly appeared in Smolny, when his comrades-in-arms quickly stirred up the mess of the October Revolution. Our leader loved transformations. During the years of the first Russian revolution, Ilyich once returned home from abroad in such a form that his own wife did not recognize him: with a shaved beard and mustache, under straw hat. At the same time, they saw him in Moscow wearing large blue glasses, the kind worn by the visually impaired... Yes, Vladimir Ilyich respected masquerades, makeup, make-up, wigs. he used them like an artist, a wig, and did not remove the rag from his cheek for a long time, even when he got to the headquarters of the revolution, buzzing like an agitated beehive. When he got rid of the need to resort to wigs, party publicists got down to business and presented Ilyich to the world in the image of a proletarian leader, a prophet of Leninism, in the makeup of a saint to the working people of all countries. Our time removes this masterful makeup from Lenin’s face. It seems that this time “seriously and for a long time,” apparently forever. The pickets crowding in front of the entrance to the V.I. Lenin Museum, on Red Square in front of the Mausoleum, where they have nowhere to retreat further - behind it is the leader’s sarcophagus, really don’t want such de-makeup. I dedicate the series of essays “Lenin without Makeup” to them, the picketers. * * * Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov set foot on Moscow soil at the end of the summer of 1890, when he was twenty years old. “For the first time, V.I. Lenin came to Moscow no later than August 20 (September 1), 1890, when he was heading from Samara to St. Petersburg for negotiations on taking external state exams at St. Petersburg University for the course Faculty of Law ". This is the first quote that I make from the well-known book “Lenin in Moscow and the Moscow Region”, which has been published more than once, compiled through the efforts of employees of the former Institute of Party History of the Moscow State Committee and the Moscow Committee of the CPSU, with the help of local historians and journalists. They can tell me: “What new can be told on this topic, if it has been developed, like a gold mine, for decades through the efforts of many people?" where I saw a bust of the leader, cast from cast iron immediately after his death, kept as a relic. I saw an ancient watch from the Moser company in a silver case, according to legend, donated by Lenin himself to the late Moscow worker-party member from this family in gratitude for the gift in 1906-1907 spent the night in a house that was once located in the eastern part of the city, where proletarians lived. This wooden, one-story house was preserved only in a family photograph. I have no doubt that on one of his visits before October, in the interval between emigrations, Lenin could once spend the night on the remote outskirts in the family of a worker, a proven party member. From this family came the future head of our famous Tagansk prison, appointed to a responsible position for his services to the revolution. However, no documents confirming this fact of Lenin’s biography have been preserved, except for the memories of the Muscovite’s advanced years. She allegedly saw the founder of the party as a child when Lenin was in their house, and when he left, he left a generous gift - a pocket watch. Since, I repeat, there are no documents and it is almost impossible to find them, it turned out to be impossible to write about this fact when I learned about it: the Institute of Party History would not give permission to any author for such a publication. I asked my correspondent, a member of this family, if my memory serves me right, Nikolai Ivanovich Kakurin, to write everything he knew about this episode so that at least some document would remain in the archive. But he failed to inspire him to do such work. And he himself was not inspired to overcome moral difficulties. The image of the head of the Tagansk prison in a commander’s tunic and with a saber on his side, which I saw in the photograph, loomed before my eyes. It was he who became an obstacle to erasing another “blank spot” in the biography of our teacher and leader. I didn’t want to follow the jailer’s footsteps, even if they offered the opportunity to follow an obvious Leninist trail. Although, generally speaking, it is an interesting job to walk along the dusty paths of communist jailers with pre-revolutionary party experience. Each of these paths will lead, sooner or later, to a highway or a highway, the main route that Comrade Lenin entered into history... But we will not turn anywhere from the main route, which Vladimir Ilyich personally paved with his own feet across Moscow, although, it would seem, it has been written about this and rewritten, However, much is still unclear, many facts were interpreted distortedly, many were kept silent and fell out of the sight of the authors of Leninian... That’s why it is necessary to write. So, from the banks of the Volga, external student Ulyanov went to take exams at St. Petersburg University. To do this, he had to come to Moscow to the Ryazansky station (now Kazansky), move to Nikolaevsky to go to St. Petersburg. Why not go from the Ryazan station to a Moscow hotel, and from there to the center, to Moscow University, famous for its Faculty of Law, where one could also take exams? By the way, the external program at Moscow University lasted for many years, in 1950 I almost entered this decaying department, but it was just then slammed, transferring all external students to correspondence students... The traveler arriving in Moscow at that time on Kalanchevskaya Square felt far from the city center, on its outskirts. It was necessary to hire a cab driver and move along Domnikovka, now defunct, to the Garden Ring, then proceed into the thick of Moscow, where about a million inhabitants lived on an area of ​​​​about one hundred square kilometers. Everyone was counted by head according to the 1898 census, when the number of Muscovites had already exceeded a million. That is, our Moscow was ten times smaller than it is today: both in territory and in population. But even then it was Moscow, with the Kremlin, dozens of monasteries and hundreds of churches, Moscow University and the Conservatory, the Tretyakov Brothers Gallery and the library of the Rumyantsev Museum, the Bolshoi and Maly Theaters, many shopping arcades, dozens of taverns, furnished rooms, restaurants, farmsteads. The Moscow mayor introduced water supply and sewerage into everyday life, built new Upper Trading Rows, the building of the City Duma... Moscow was the largest cultural center, where Tchaikovsky's symphonies and operas, Leo Tolstoy's novels, Chekhov's stories, Levitan's paintings, Shekhtel's palaces were born, where dozens of magazines and newspapers were published, printing presses and publishing houses multiplied... However, as we know, others had the greatest influence on the future leader sources of inspiration, and especially the writer who created a novel in a tsarist prison called “What is to be done?”... It is not known whether Vladimir Ulyanov stopped in Moscow on his way to St. Petersburg to see its sights, and if he stayed, then for how long. Circumstances were such that, following the eldest children in the family, he rushed to the capital of the empire for education. The first to pave the way to the university was Alexander Ulyanov, who showed great promise in science; The literary gifted Anna Ulyanova also came to St. Petersburg. The elder brother, as is known, took part in the assassination attempt on the emperor Alexandra III, fortunately, failed. For which he was executed along with his friends - conspirators who followed the thorny path of "People's Will", which kept the Romanov family in fear. Unlike his older brother and older sister, Vladimir did not go to the capital, but entered Kazan University, from where he was soon expelled for participating in student unrest, sending him to his grandfather’s family estate - Kokushkino, near Kazan. A little over a year later, after serving time in the village, after repeated petitions asking for permission to complete higher education, Vladimir Ulyanov, the brother of the hanged state criminal, received the right to do so. The choice fell on St. Petersburg University. Why? Vladimir’s beloved sister Olga, a talented girl, who in August 1890 submitted an application to the Higher Women’s Courses, decided to study in St. Petersburg. According to the rules of that time, girls were not accepted into the university. In the same August, her brother also comes to St. Petersburg. On next year He visited the university four times, making long journeys from the banks of the Volti through Moscow to the shores of the Nova. Soon Olga dies of typhus. The first grave of the Ulyanovs appears at the Volkhov cemetery. The thinned family after the death of the father, the execution of the brother, and the death of the sister, after the separation of Vladimir, who decided to live in St. Petersburg, moves from the Volga to a permanent place of residence in Moscow. This event happened at the end of the summer of 1893, when it was time to go to university. youngest son in the family of Dmitry, who chose the medical faculty of the university. “We know all this,” I hear the irritated voices of those who picket the mausoleum of V. I. Lenich. But do the picketers know? many of whom have crossed the poverty line today, what was the well-being of the family and the leader they adored based on? How can we explain that the Ulyanovs, left without a breadwinner, could freely move from city to city - from Simbirsk to Kazan, from Kazan to Samara, from Samara to Moscow, live in good houses with full income in apartments, both winter and summer? This is explained by the high position that doctors and teachers occupied in the empire. The doctor (last position - doctor of the Zlatoust arms factory) was grandfather Alexander Blank, a surgeon and obstetrician by profession, a balneologist by vocation, an expert in hydrotherapy. The teacher was Father Ilya Ulyanov, who served as the director of public schools in the province, and was awarded the rank of active state councilor (according to the table of ranks in civilian service, he was equal to the rank of general in military service). Both father and grandfather owed almost everything they earned only to themselves. Their wives, naturally, did not serve, but took care of the children. Blank left his daughters an estate in Kokushkino, an estate with land and a house. Ilya Ulyanov owned a city estate in Simbirsk. Having sold it, the family could buy the Alakaevka farm near Samara, with a house and land, where, as in Kokushkino, they lived both in summer and winter. Having come to power, the grandson of Blank and the son of Ulyanov promised that the people's teacher would be placed in a special position in Soviet Russia, which he did not have under the autocracy. I kept my word. A teacher and a doctor, a librarian and an engineer, an artist and a journalist, like any intellectual, found themselves among the lowest paid workers in the socialist fatherland. None of the Soviet teachers or doctors could dream of such a number of children, of such wealth that the provincial factory doctor Blank and the provincial public education figure Ulyanov had... So, in August 1893, the native Volga residents of Ulyanov became Muscovites for a long time, without asking for it permission from the authorities, not knowing the difficulties and torments with “registration”. Widow Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova. who lived on her husband’s pension, not only moved from city to city, but also gave an excellent education to all the children who (with paid training) studied in gymnasiums, universities and higher education women's courses best cities. The Ulyanovs' first Moscow apartment was located on Bolshoy Palashevsky (now Yuzhinsky) Lane, in an old house that was later built with upper floors, not far from Tverskaya. Vladimir spent a week with his family. A document has been preserved confirming his stay in Moscow, an entry in the reader registration book of the Rumyantsev Museum library, dating back to August 26, 1893: “Vladimir Ulyanov. Assistant attorney at law. B. Bronnaya, Ivanova village, apt. 3.” As you can see, this is not an alley, but Bolshaya Bronnaya Street, which is close to it. Why? Historians believe that this address is mythical, invented by a library reader “for the purpose of conspiracy,” since it is known for sure that his relatives then lived in Bolshoi Palashevsky Lane. He didn't stop anywhere else. Academician Pyotr Pavlovich Maslov, who died of natural causes, who in his youth joined the Social Democrats and participated in the revolutionary movement (withdrew from politics after the October Revolution), met Vladimir Ulyanov precisely in 1893. Even then, Maspov was struck by the determination of his comrade, focused on one point, boiling down to the “main revolutionary task,” which absorbed his mind and will. Remembering his and Lenin’s youth after his death, Academician Maslov published his memoirs in the Economic Bulletin in 1924, which provides a strikingly frank reflection on the distinctive character of the young Ulyanov: “Maybe I’m wrong,” wrote Pyotr Maslov, “but It seems to me that to all the basic questions that can be asked, his integrity of the matter would give the following answer: “What is truth?” - “That which leads to revolution and victory of the working class”; “What is moral?” - “That what leads to revolution"; "Who is the friend?" - "The one who leads to the revolution"; "Who is the enemy?" - "The one who interferes with it"; "What is the purpose of life?" - "Revolution"; "What is beneficial ? - “That which leads to revolution.” Such is the moral code of a revolutionary. From this quote, in many publications, the question concerning morality was excluded. And not by chance. An entry in the library registration book is one of the documentary evidence of Lenin’s immorality formed in his youth. If it was necessary to lie “in the name of the revolution,” then another lie, small or large, immediately appeared. First - from the lips of an assistant attorney (lawyer), and ultimately - from the lips of the head of government. Unlike the questionnaires that readers of our libraries fill out now, the old one, Rumyantsevskaya, contained only three questions: last name, first name, patronymic. Profession. Location. Neither about party affiliation, nor about nationality, nor about education. The pre-revolutionary form was not interested in other details. Biographers of Lenin who tried to find out his origins and the nationality of his ancestors were severely punished. Thus, for more than twenty years, M. Shaginyan’s book “The Ulyanov Family” was removed from libraries, and she herself, as she admitted, “suffered quite a lot” due to the fact that she discovered the Kalmyk origin in her father’s family, which was taken advantage of by the Nazi newspapers in 1937. As the writer found out, Lenin’s paternal grandmother “came from a respected Kalmyk family,” and in addition, Kalmyk blood flowed in the veins of Nikolai Ulyanov’s Russian grandfather. The fact that the fascist newspapers in Germany gave this fact, common among the natives of the Volga, some significance and trumpeted it in the newspapers is quite understandable. That's why they are fascists, racists, criminals. But that’s why, on the initiative of the seemingly internationalist, Marxist-Leninist Comrade Stalin and his comrades, the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of August 5, 1938, “On the novel by Marietta Shaginyan “Ticket to History,” part 1, “The Ulyanov Family,” was adopted, which sends Shaginyan's book to the dungeons of special storage facilities and to the fire precisely for this genealogical discovery? Are the Bolsheviks racists? Then Lenin's widow also got it, who, having read the novel in manuscript, “not only did not prevent its appearance, but, as stated in the decision, in every possible way encouraged Shaginyan on various aspects of the life of the Ulyanovs and thus bore full responsibility for this book." It was with such illiterate, indistinct words, with such a fig leaf that the obvious fascist nakedness, the essence of the Stalinist-Bolshevik party decision regarding "encouragement in various aspects of the life of the Ulyanovs" was covered up. Until recently An absolute ban was imposed on genealogical research on the line of Alexander's grandfather.If biographers were allowed to describe the peasant, Russian past of Nikolai Ulyanov in the smallest detail, then the past of Alexander Blank was presented in the most general terms. It is enough to look at the stand of the V. I. Lenin Museum in Moscow to see how the “non-Aryan” origin of the maternal grandfather is hidden. The only thing that Shaginyan was allowed to do was to report “Alexander Dmitrievich Blank was from the town of Starokonstantinovo, Volyn province.” But to say that Lenin’s grandfather acquired the name Alexander, as well as the patronymic Dmitrievich, in the 21st year of his life after baptism, acceptance of Orthodoxy, and before that his name was Israel, the writer, under pain of having the book confiscated, could not inform. In the sixties, all documents were seized from the Leningrad archives, discovered by A. Perov and M. Stein, which reported on the desire of the Blank brothers to convert from the Jewish to the Orthodox faith. This allowed them to enter the military medical academy and receive all the rights of subjects of the Russian emperor. - We will not allow you to disgrace Lenin! - they told one of the discoverers of documents about the origin of the leader’s grandfather in Smolny. - What, is it a shame to be a Jew? - asked the discouraged historian. “You don’t understand this,” answered the nomenklatura zealots of the purity of Lenin’s blood at the headquarters of the revolution. The very revolution that promised all its adherents freedom from all national oppression. It did promise, but only in practice, many graduates of institutes and universities, filling out questionnaires, had to answer the notorious fifth point when trying to occupy a high position, after which specialists from blood purity authorities carried out specific “research” on both lines. If the tsarist officials had such curiosity, if they were guided when solving personnel issues by the instructions that were developed at the Old and Lubyanka Square , - our leader would not have seen either a law school diploma or a foreign passport. After all, he had dozens of relatives on his mother’s side abroad, as well as in St. Petersburg cemeteries, with surnames that were not at all pure: Grosschopf (grandmother), Gottlieb (great-grandfather), Østedt (great-grandmother), that is, clearly Germans and other various Swedes. Well, what happened in the distant past along the lines of Israel Blank - no one tried to find out, God forbid... Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov himself called Russian and German his native languages. By nationality, he considered himself, naturally, Russian, a native of the Volga, a Volzhanite. He was a hereditary nobleman, since his father, Ilya Ulyanov, having become an actual state councilor, received the rights of a nobleman, which he could pass on by inheritance... Lev Kolodny Cycle “Lenin without makeup” “Ulyanovsk Foundation” What is known about Vladimir Ulyanov’s first stay in Moscow, in Bolshoy Palashevsky Lane? The memoirs of brother Dmitry Ilyich, dictated in old age, say: “In Moscow, our first apartment was in Bolshoy Palashevsky Lane - close to Sytin Lane, Bolshaya and Malaya Bronnaya area, near Tverskoy Boulevard. I remember that the house was a church. Then the house numbers in Moscow were not in use, and I remember that Vladimir Ilyich was still laughing and saying: “Why hasn’t Moscow introduced numbers yet - the house of a merchant of such and such or the house of a merchant’s wife of such and such.” He also came across the following address: “Petrovsky Park, near Straw gatehouse." He was indignant: "The devil knows what kind of address, not European." So ordinary was Ilyich’s appearance in Palashakh, as the old-Moscow name was for the area of ​​Palashevsky lanes, famous for its proximity to Tverskaya, for its ordinary stone buildings, among which several belonged to the church Nativity of Christ. She stood near them, in Maly Palashevsky Lane (destroyed after the revolution). After the Ulyanovs settled in Moscow, Vladimir Ilyich began to regularly visit his relatives: on holidays and in the summer, when the family moved to the dacha. At the beginning of 1894, his first public speech took place in Moscow, which was witnessed by several dozen people... Based on the description of the participant in this illegal meeting, Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, one can imagine how much effort the dissidents of that time spent to cover up their tracks and get away from the spies. “That day I took all measures to appear there completely “clean,” writes V.D. Bonch-Bruevich in the article “My first meeting with V.I. Lenin.” A full hour later, after traveling on horseback and on foot, our conspirator said the password and found himself in a spacious apartment, where a large group of intellectuals had gathered, who decided to listen to the report of the populist Vasily Vorontsov. It was in the group of those gathered that Bonch-Bruevich saw for the first time his future chief of staff in the “workers’ and peasants’ government.” This, in his words, “was a darkish blond with combed slightly curly hair, an oblong beard and an absolutely exceptional huge forehead, which everyone paid attention to.” He impressed with his polemical speech, which lasted about forty minutes, and impressed with his memory and ability to quote without a piece of paper. Naturally, he spoke without a piece of paper all this time. The young Petersburger awarded his opponent, a venerable, elderly writer, a series of negative epithets. He called his theory “dilapidated theoretical baggage,” “old and wretched,” and personally called the speaker “Mr. Honorable Referent” who has “not the slightest idea” about Marxism. The writer was not offended, he even perked up after such a furious denunciation, greeted the Petersburger, whose name, like everyone else, he did not know, moreover, he even congratulated the Marxists that they had a rising star, whom he wished success. It is unlikely that the opponent, flushed with excitement, heard these words, since, as V. Bonch-Bruevich writes, after the speech he immediately disappeared from his field of vision. That's why he's a conspirator. Anna Ilyinichna, who was present at that meeting, invited Bonch home. Observing the rules of secrecy, the young revolutionaries went their separate ways: Anna Ilyinichna one way, Vladimir Dmitrievich another, so as not to attract the attention of the secret police. Imagine Bonch’s surprise when, at the family table in the Ulyanovs’ apartment, he saw the Petersburger, who on that family evening never introduced himself to the guest by his name. Sitting at the table, the future comrade-in-arms and confidante heard for the first time during a lively conversation Lenin’s skeptical “hm, hm,” which expressed many shades of feelings, in particular irony, doubt, and also heard the well-known address “my friend.” “Tell me, my friend,” the supposedly young future leader turned to the then equally young future manager of the affairs of the Soviet government, “what is going on here in Moscow.” They tell me that you have good Social Democratic connections. And, without asking the name and patronymic of the Petersburger, Bonch-Bruevich took it all and told it all, without hiding, as if he reported on the work done, even though he considered himself a conspirator, as we noted, he spent hours walking around the back streets so as not to attract the attention of the police . So there was something to hide. Only a year later did “father” Bonch learn from Anna Ilyinichna that the brilliant St. Petersburger who opposed the populist Vorontsov was none other than Vladimir Ulyanov, her brother. Tens of years later, in 1923, Bonch-Bruevich received from the former police archive a photograph of a report to the police department, where an agent of the security department described in detail... that same secret meeting on Arbat Square, which wealthy revolutionaries carefully hid while traveling around Moscow in cabs . Agent, it turns out. I saw and heard everything then. He reported to his superiors: “The well-known founder of the theory of populism, the writer “V. V." (doctor Vasily Pavlovich Vorontsov) forced Davydov to remain silent with his argumentation, so that a certain Ulyanov (allegedly the brother of the hanged man) took upon himself the defense of the latter’s views, who carried out this defense with full knowledge affairs." As we see, the Moscow police knew who was hiding under the name of St. Petersburg, they knew what was being hidden from Bonch-Bruevich and the assembled listeners. They soon found out exactly what kind of relationship "a certain Ulyanov" had with the hanged Ulyanov... Vladimir Ulyanov had a presentiment that his Moscow performance would not be in vain. As Anna Ilyinichna recalls, her brother “cursed himself” for being excited by the aplomb with which the populist “V. V.", got involved in controversy in an insufficiently confidential atmosphere. After that speech, he "even became angry with the acquaintance who brought him to this party because she did not tell him who his opponent was." Who is this "acquaintance"? From the memoirist's notes we learn : M. P. Yasneva-Golubeva, She was nine years older than St. Petersburg and before him, as a populist, joined the revolutionary movement. In Samara, where she was serving exile under public police supervision, she met Vladimir Ilyich in the Ulyanovs’ house, who seemed to her older than her age. But I liked the eyes, “squinted, with some special sparkle.” A new acquaintance accompanied the young woman home. Such farewells became a tradition. Not limited to walks, Vladimir came to Golubeva’s house, brought, in her words, books, read some of his notes out loud. We had long conversations, intimately. About what? - He and I often talked a lot about the “seizure of power” - after all, this was a favorite topic among us Jacobins. (Golubeva considered herself and her like-minded people a Jacobin). As far as I remember, Vladimir Ilyich did not dispute either the possibility or the desirability of seizing power... Vladimir Ilyich tried to teach Golubeva to play chess, but was not successful. But he managed to change her views, from a Jacobin he turned her into a like-minded Marxist, there was time for this, after each visit to the Ulyanov family, as Golubeva wrote forty years later, “Vladimir Ilyich invariably went to accompany me to the other end of the city.” It was Maria Petrovna who not only brought the Petersburger to a debate party on Arbat Square, but also arranged a secret meeting between him and two comrades. This meeting took place on Malaya Bronnaya Street in the apartment of her sister, who was married to a private bailiff. On business, he often left home. It was assumed that he would not be present during the conspirators’ visit to the apartment. For some reason, two comrades were late. But the owner of the house unexpectedly showed up in the middle of the day and, with Moscow hospitality, invited both his wife’s sister and her companion to dine at the table. He began to refuse, but could not resist the pressure of the hospitable bailiff and sat down at the set table. “And so,” we read in the book “Lenin in Moscow and the Moscow Region,” “Vladimir Ilyich went with Maria Petrovna to dine with the bailiff. The owner, not knowing, of course, with whom he was dealing, was courtesy incarnate...” Perhaps the bailiff was daydreaming that he was treating a future relative to dinner... Soon the paths of Ulyanov and Golubeva diverged. "Jacobine". Having followed her Samara acquaintance, she ultimately found herself in the Bolshevik camp, and after October she ended up in the Cheka and the Central Committee apparatus. The year of her death was 1936... ...During the Christmas days of 1894, Moscow hosted a congress of doctors and naturalists. Together with them, Vladimir Ulyanov sat peacefully in the Assembly Hall of the University on Mokhovaya, where problems of statistics were discussed. In those January days, the participants of the congress both sat and walked in the Mother See. filling restaurants, clubs. Vladimir Ilyich then visited the apartment of the young doctor A. N. Vinokurov, who was part of the “six,” the already mentioned Marxist group in Moscow, and recommended to his comrades “to quickly move from the propaganda of Marxism in circles to topical political agitation among the broad masses of the working class.” And he went to St. Petersburg, where he got it. your circle "Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class". The Petersburger soon returned to Moscow for another holiday - Maslenitsa, at the end of February, which is not mentioned in the first volume of Biochronics, but is in the memoirs of the doctor S. Mitskevich, a member of the “six”. “He came again this winter, I remember at the end of February, at Maslenitsa, I saw him, we went to Vinokurov again, and there we met A. S. Rozanov, a Marxist who came from Nizhny.” A Petersburger traveled from Moscow to Nizhny... Vladimir Ulyanov managed to visit Nizhny in January of the same year. For what money? As can be seen from the "Biochronicles", having moved from Samara to St. Petersburg, making visits from there to Moscow and other cities, St. Petersburg, being a sworn attorney, did not waste time on hearings in court, on defending peasants and townspeople accused of various types of thefts, namely A young lawyer specialized in such mainly criminal cases after receiving his diploma, having begun his service to Themis, for which he received fees, and not bad ones, but Vladimir Ilyich was engaged in advocacy in Samara. On what means did the Petersburger live in the fall of 1893, throughout 1894 and 1895 - before his arrest, when he switched completely to government support? At whose expense did our hero travel around the cities? This question is never covered by Soviet biographers, never. For the first time, Nikolai Vladislavovich Volsky, aka Valentinov, dared to touch him while behind the cordon. This writer was born in the city of Morshansk, Tambov province, in the family of a leader of the nobility. He abruptly separated from his family, became interested in Marxism, and in 1904 he met Ulyanov and became his like-minded person. Then he sharply separated himself from him on philosophical issues, although he remained a socialist until the end of his days. After the revolution of 1917, he lived in Russia, edited the Targovo - Industrial Newspaper, published in Soviet Moscow. In 1930 he went abroad for diplomatic work. And he did not return to his homeland, realizing that Lubyanka and death awaited him. We owe several wonderful books to Valentinov. He wrote several documentary works about the former teacher: “Meetings with Lenin” (London, 1969), “The Early Years of Lenin” (Ann-Abor, USA, 1969) and “Little-Known Lenin” (Paris, 1972). In the last of the named books, Valentinov was the first to answer such an essential question: from what sources did Lenin take money, without working anywhere, without receiving a salary? different sources, as we now know, not always crystal clear, sometimes bloody. In the Soviet years, telling workers and peasants about the life of her brother, his elder sister Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova-Elizarova composed “Memories of Ilyich”, as well as a biography “V. I. Ulyanov (N. Lenin), a short sketch of life and activities.” She, in particular, explained why it was after Samara that the Ulyanov family split: mother and children moved to Moscow, and Vladimir moved to St. Petersburg. "...he did not want to settle in Moscow, where our whole family went together with his brother Mitya, who was entering Moscow University. He decided to settle in a more lively, intellectual and also revolutionary center - St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg residents then called Moscow a large village, in it Those years there was still a lot of provincialism, and Volodya was already fed up with the province. Yes, probably his intention to seek connections among the workers, to take up revolutionary work closely, forced him to also prefer to settle on his own, not in a family, the rest of whose members he could compromise ". So, the main reason - to live in St. Petersburg, and not in Moscow - was that the capital city then seemed to Vladimir Ilyich a “big village”. Living in a village, even a big one, is cheaper... But Vladimir Ulyanov was not worried about material circumstances. Why? In the book "Children's and teenage years Ilyich" Anna Ilyinichna, addressing the "grandchildren of Ilyich", told them that after the death of their father in 1886, "the whole family lived only on their mother's pension, and on what they lived on little by little from what was left after their father." That is, she made it clear: family needed. The children reading this book, of course, believed Aunt Anya. But those children who managed to visit the house museum in the former Simbirsk could doubt the mythical need of the Ulyanovs even after the death of the breadwinner. I witnessed a scene when, after visiting a two-story house, a certain boy - the excursionist reprimanded his father, who brought him to the museum: “And you said that Lenin was from a poor family.” Not a single teacher, not a single doctor, engineer, worker, officer, official has a house like this in our country today!.. it was the former resident of the estate on Moskovskaya Street, the same one where the museum is today, who was deprived of their opportunity. It is well known that Lenin’s mother Maria Alexandrovna received a pension from the state in the amount of 100 rubles after the death of Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov. In modern times, it is difficult to say how much it is, especially during years of unprecedented inflation. But it is known that the best varieties of meat, fish, butter cost a penny per pound in the Russian Empire... But one hundred rubles a month would not be enough to buy a farm, a horse, a mill, to travel abroad, to move from city to city, for children to study at the gymnasium and university... This is exactly the life of the Ulyanov family that began after the death of Ilya Nikolaevich. What, in this case, “lived little by little from what was left from the father”? As Lenin’s biographer Valentinov found out, his father had not only personal savings kept in the bank, but also a certain inheritance bequeathed by his late lonely brother. The money received after the sale of the Simbirsk house, together with these bank sums, formed a certain “Ulyanovsk fund”. It was he who allowed the large family not only to rent multi-room apartments, but also to buy a farm near Samara, which the family owned until 1897. Maria Alexandrovna also owned part of the estate in Kokushkino, which the leader’s biographers certainly mention. The Alakaevka farm, 83.5 acres of land, was bought for 7,500 rubles. Young Vladimir Ilyich did not want to engage in farming so as not to come into conflict with the peasants. There was a lot to conflict about. The entire village, 34 peasant households, accounted for 65 acres, much less than for one Ulyanov family. They rented out the land to an entrepreneur, and he would release every year, depending on the harvest, a certain income, which neither Anna Ilyinichna nor anyone else from the Ulyanov family writes about. Vladimir Ilyich mentions this source and other financial foundations of the family in a letter to his mother, dating back to the time when the family settled in Moscow, and he lived independently in St. Petersburg: “Write the situation of your finances,” he addresses Maria Alexandrovna son in October 1893, - did you receive anything from your aunt? Did you receive the September rent from Kruschwitz, how much was left of the deposit (500 rubles) after the expenses for moving and installation? " As we can see, the young owner kept everything in his head. The mentioned aunt managed the Kokushkino estate, part of which was owned by her sister, Maria Alexandrovna; the mentioned Krushwitz rented the Alakaevka farm and received money from the peasants, which he then sent to the owner. all the same Maria Alexandrovna. She, in turn, regularly transferred money to her son. “I’ll ask you to send some money: mine is coming to an end,” the newly minted Petersburger informed his mother... It turned out that in the month from 9/9 to 9/X I spent only 54 rubles. 30 kopecks, not counting the payment for things (about 10 rubles) and expenses for one court case (also about 10 rubles)..." That is, 74 rubles were spent on living in the capital in a month. The entire pension for my father, as already mentioned, was 100 rubles. This means that in order to help her son, Maria Alexandrovna had to have not a hundred rubles for expenses every month, but several times more. Carefully shading material side the life of the Ulyanovs, depicting it in gray colors, Anna Ilyinichna casually mentions her brother’s earnings. falling on the time when he wrote a letter to his mother asking him to “send some money.” “In the fall of 1893, Vladimir Ilyich moved to St. Petersburg, where he signed up as an assistant to the attorney Volkenshtein. This gave him a position that COULD GIVE EARNINGS, (Emphasis by me - L.K.). Several times, but it seems everything is in business for its intended purpose. Vladimir Ilyich acts as a defender in St. Petersburg." Could give. But it didn’t. "Biochronicle" documents that everything free time From morning until late at night, the Petersburger spent reading the classics of Marxism in Russian and in the original in German, and other political and economic works. Instead of communicating with clients, Ulyanov talks with newly minted Marxists, attends a circle of technology students, gives an abstract, writes articles, corresponds with like-minded people... And writes own composition , At the beginning of summer. taking the manuscript. Vladimir Ulyanov leaves St. Petersburg for Moscow to spend the summer with his family at the dacha. Near Moscow... Lev KOLODNY. The cycle “Lenin without makeup” Under the pseudonym “Ilyin” The year 1895 was ending. This means that Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov has lived on earth for a quarter of a century. His peers at the Simbirsk gymnasium, Kazan and St. Petersburg universities served, made speeches in courts, made careers in public and private service, and started their own businesses. Assistant attorney at law Ulyanov approached the goal of life in a different way. Under the name of Nikolai Petrovich, he appeared in different parts of St. Petersburg in apartments, where several workers - students of circles - were waiting for him. And he spent hours promoting Marxism. Revolution. - the lecturer said to one of the like-minded people, returning from abroad, - assumes the participation of the masses. But it is done by a minority.” He would later call this “minority” “professional revolutionaries,” whose occupation is exclusively party, revolutionary, conspiratorial affairs. Nikolai Petrovich led such a life as a professional revolutionary even then, before his first arrest. “Revolution is not a game of “spillies,” he said to student Mikhail Silvin, a student of the circle, and to another worker, a student of the circle, Vladimir Knyazev, he advised not to get carried away with entertainment: “I heard that you like to go to dances, but give it up - you have to work hard.” his own earnings, he admitted to another member of the circle that, in essence, there was no work at all, that in a year, apart from mandatory appearances in court, he had not earned even as much as it costs an assistant attorney to collect documents. We already know that Ulyanov, an assistant attorney at law, lived in the service, but where did they get the funds to print his book on hectographs, where was the money for printing leaflets, publishing a newspaper that was prepared in St. Petersburg by young Marxists? “We must oblige party members to pay membership fees, organize lotteries and use all possible sources to raise funds,” Nikolai Petrovich taught port worker Vladimir Knyazev, whom he helped as a lawyer to sue the inheritance of his late grandmother. It is known that during a strike at the Thornton factory in St. Petersburg in November, Lenin and a friend visited the worker Merkulov and gave him 40 rubles to give to the families of those arrested. Where did the St. Petersburg Marxists come from, after all, not from fees for unpronounceable lawyer speeches, not from the translations of Maria Alexandrovna’s mother? Obviously, one of the wealthy students attending the circles gave from their personal funds. Then, in 1895. the matter did not come to “all possible sources of obtaining funds.” At that moment when the St. Petersburg Marxists united. The Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class was about to release the first issue of a newspaper called Rabocheye Delo, and then the metropolitan police decided that it was time to stop this “song.” And he makes arrests. On the night of December 8-9, Vladimir Ulyanov, together with his comrades in the “Union of Struggle,” was taken into custody and became a resident of cell No. 193 of the pre-trial detention center. The prisoner turns the prison cell into a study, writes the “Draft Program of the Social Democratic Party,” and orders books from the prison library. With their help, marking letters with dots and strokes, he establishes a connection with his neighbors. He does gymnastics and writes letters. Finally, he begins his big work, “The Development of Capitalism in Russia.” Therefore, he asks his family to send him the books he needs. He asks to buy a suitcase similar to the one he brought from abroad, but without a double bottom, fearing that the police will return to an old episode and retroactively convict him of transporting illegal literature. Relatives rush to help. His mother and sisters Anna Ilyinichna and Maria Ilyinichna come to St. Petersburg... “The mother prepared and brought him parcels three times a week,” writes Anna Ilyinichna, “guided by the diet prescribed by the specialist; in addition, he had paid lunch and milk.” With this milk, the defendant covered the pages of prison books, then this text was read and reprinted in the wild. To write with milk, Vladimir Ilyich made inkwells from bread. When the warden intensified his surveillance, he ate them, putting several of these inkwells into his mouth a day, which he laughingly told his family about on dates. Books, the latest magazines - everything was at hand in the cell. Transfers and visits were allowed all the time, the most delicious food was brought. I get my mineral water here too; they bring it to me from the pharmacy on the same day,” the prisoner wrote shortly after his arrest. I wonder if any of the St. Petersburg pharmacies today have any mineral water? Is it possible to buy fresh milk in the store? Even for bread you sometimes have to stand in line... In short, when a year later the leisurely official investigation into the case of the “Union of Struggle” ended, then without any trial (here it is, the obvious arbitrariness of tsarism) the decision was announced to deport Vladimir Ulyanov for three years to Eastern Siberia. Vladimir Ilyich, not without regret, even exclaimed, turning to Anna Ilyinichna: “It’s early, I haven’t had time to collect the materials yet.” Another sister, Maria Ilyinichna, testifies: “And strange as it may seem, in terms of his stomach illness, confinement in a pre-trial detention center, where he stayed for more than a year, also had a good effect on him. The right image life and relatively satisfactory nutrition (during the entire time of his imprisonment he constantly received transmissions from home) had an impact here too good influence on his health. Of course, the lack of air and walks affected him - he became very pale and yellowed, but the stomach illness was less noticeable than in freedom." This was the tsarist punitive system long before the first Russian revolution, before the "Manifesto" on freedoms. Well, what system in prisons and pre-trial detention centers was established by Lenin’s “workers’ and peasants’ power” when it was headed former prisoner camera No. 193, now everyone knows it well. Vladimir Ulyanov received permission to go into exile without an escort, on his own, freely. On the way from St. Petersburg, he stopped for several days in February 1897 in Moscow, where the Ulyanov family was still living at that time. This time she lived in the Arbat area, on the Dog Playground. in a beautiful wooden mansion. This was the fifth Moscow address of the Ulyanovs known to local historians during their three and a half years of stay in the city. None of the Ulyanovs described this Arbat apartment. In all likelihood, she was the same. as usual. With separate rooms for each family member, a common dining room, and a piano that followed Maria Alexandrovna everywhere she moved. With a table covered with a snow-white starched tablecloth. “I remember the simple furnishings of the Ulyanovs’ apartment, the spacious dining room, where there was a piano and a large table covered with a white tablecloth”... This eyewitness description refers to an apartment in Samara, but the same interior was constantly being formed wherever a large, friendly family settled. Such simplicity with the piano was ensured quite consistently for many years, although the mother never had to wait for help from her eldest son. Yes, no one needed it. Vice versa. every member of the Ulyanov family was always ready to help dear and talented Vladimir, regardless of time, costs of buying expensive books, diet food, a suitcase with a double bottom and the like. As for the fairly frequent moves from apartment to apartment, this was, in principle, a common practice of Moscow life for many wealthy people, when they preferred to rent housing rather than buy their own homes. This is what, for example, Alexander Pushkin’s mother did, changing apartments several times a year. This is what the family of the writer Aksakov did when they returned in the fall from their own estate in Abramtsevo to spend the winter in the Mother See. So, we see, the Ulyanovs practiced, choosing what was more convenient and better... Three years after the end of exile, having rested from the bustle of metropolitan life, having breathed fresh air Having skated and skied, hunted in the taiga, gorged on the freshest meat and Siberian pies, the young revolutionary and his wife returned from captivity to Moscow. From the station I went home, not to Arbat, Dog Square, but to another district of Moscow. What's ahead... By the way, I learned about the existence of veal as a commodity not from the windows of Moscow stores, which I have been observing for forty years, but from reading Nadezhda Konstantinovna's memoirs about her stay in exile, in Shushenskoye. These memories have long struck my imagination, I think that they also have a strong impact on readers today, since Nadezhda Konstantinovna, when she wrote her memoirs after Ilyich’s death, did not imagine that instead of the communism he promised, the time would come when the life of those convicted in tsarist exile would seem to us like a stay in a sanatorium at government expense. First, I will quote an episode that tells how Vladimir Ilyich practiced law for his soul. not having the right to do so, as an exile, he gave legal advice to the Shushensk peasants and at the same time learned various everyday stories, thus studying the economic side of life in the Siberian village. “Once the bull of some rich man gored the cow of a small woman (as you can see, even in the smallest everyday episode, the class approach does not leave the memoirist, Nadezhda Konstantinovna. - L.K.). The volost court sentenced the owner of the bull to pay the woman ten rubles. The woman protested the decision and demanded a “copy” of the case. “What do you want with a copy of a white cow, or what?” the assessor laughed at her. The angry woman ran to complain to Vladimir Ilyich. Often the threat of the offended person that he would complain to Ulyanov was enough for the offender to give in." Now that we have some idea of ​​the role played in the Shushensky life of an exile by a certain “assessor” who presided over the volost court, I will cite another episode where the same person acts not as a legal entity, but as an exploiter, a merchant, in relation to the exile. So, I quote. "Assessor" - local wealthy peasant - was more concerned about selling us veal than about ensuring that “his” exiles did not escape. The cheapness in this Shushenskoye was amazing. For example, Vladimir Ilyich, for his “salary” - an eight-ruble allowance - had a clean room, food, washing and repairs - and it was considered that he paid dearly. True, lunch and dinner were simple - one week they slaughtered a sheep for Vladimir Ilyich, which they fed him day after day until he had eaten everything; as soon as he eats, they buy meat for a week; a worker in the yard, in a trough where they prepare cattle feed, chops the purchased meat into cutlets for Vladimir Ilyich, also for a whole week. But there was plenty of milk and canine for both Vladimir Ilyich and his dog, the beautiful Gordon - Zhenya, whom he taught to wear a diarrhea, and do a stand, and all other dog science. Since the Zyryanovs (the owners of the hut in which the exile lived - L.K.) had men who often got drunk, and living there as a family was in many ways inconvenient, we soon moved to another apartment - we rented half a house with a garden for four rubles. We lived as a family. In the summer there was no one to help with housework. And my mother and I fought with the Russian stove. It happened in the beginning. that I was knocking over soup with dumplings with a grip, which scattered all over my underside. Then I got used to it. All sorts of things grew in our garden - cucumbers, carrots, beets, pumpkin; I was very proud of my garden. We set up a garden in the yard - Ilyich and I went to the forest, brought hops, built a garden. In October, an assistant appeared, thirteen-year-old Pasha, thin. with sharp elbows, quickly taking over the entire household." So, happily ("...Vladimir Ilyich sang very willingly and a lot in Siberia..." - this is also from the memoirs of N.K. Krupskaya) the exiles lived where this afternoon, with fire, you cannot find, either cheaply or for a lot of money, everything that Nadezhda Konstantinovna described so well. Krupskaya’s words are complemented by the interior of the house in Shushenskoye, where one of the many Lenin museums is now located. The apartment of our future leader in the Siberian house of the widow Petrova many have seen...On the walls of the room where the young people have settled, there are beds, a bookcase, a massive desk, a table, chairs, a bedside table, an armchair... In such an environment, with a strong ruble, which made it possible to buy veal, sturgeon, ten rubles a cow, Lenin finishes his monograph “The Development of Capitalism in Russia. The process of formation of the Internal Market for large-scale industry." He writes articles where he proves the need to build a party that, at the head of the working class, must destroy this very market to the ground and build a new society without "rich people", without "weak women", without "assessors", who supervised the exile so poorly and tried to sell him their veal at a cheap price. From the memoirs of Krupskaya and many other revolutionaries, an impressive picture of the tsarist exile experienced by thousands of opponents of the autocracy is created. The regime sent its political enemies to live in places “not so remote,” often without security, at public expense. Each person received a salary of 8 rubles per month. Nobody forced me to work off this decent money in logging, chemicals, mines, and so on. For eight rubles, the exiles could not only rent normal housing, but also eat in a way we never dream of today, free citizens , who for seventy years tried unsuccessfully to implement Ilyich’s behests. Namely: regularly, every day, consume veal, gorge on dumplings, lamb cutlets, shangami and other Siberian dishes, supplementing meat and fish with vegetables from your own garden, hiring servants to help your wife. There are no zones, camps, barbed wire, dogs, security officers, guards, sex workers. There are no riots and other Bolshevik inventions and delights! How did it happen that a brilliantly educated lawyer, having gone through such exiled universities, and his comrades, intellectuals who experienced royal exile, created the “GUAAG Archipelago”, unprecedented in cruelty in history? The mystery of the century, no less. A person who in the evenings in Shushenskoye “usually read books on philosophy - Hegel, Kant, French materialists, and when he was very tired - Pushkin, Lermontov. Nekrasov,” therefore, philosophically educated, intensely constantly thinking about the universal laws of development of nature and society, brought up on the masterpieces of Russian (the best in the world) literature, it was he who was the author of the 58th monstrous article of the Soviet Criminal Code. It was Vladimir Ilyich who was the author of the “execution” articles, who demanded tougher punishments for dissent, and the organizer of the first concentration camps for fellow citizens in the history of the 20th century. Those who doubt my words, I refer to the 45th volume of the Complete Works of V.I. Lenin, where his “top secret” letters to “Comrade Kursky” are published, which appeared in that last year, when he could still move a pen on paper, not long ago until complete paralysis. This Comrade Kursky was the People's Commissar of Justice. It was to him that the dying Ilmch ordered to add five more, from 64 to 69, to the six articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which provided for the death penalty for political activity, that is, execution, from 58 to 63 articles, bequeathing to “expand the use of execution... all types of activities of the Mensheviks, s-r (that is, socialist-revolutionaries - L.K.), etc." This means killing those party members with whom the leader served time in Siberian exile. In letters to Comrade Kursky, Lenin appears in full growth - without any communist makeup. Punisher. ...In February 1900, the period of exile ended. On the way from Siberia (the final destination is Pskov, where he was supposed to live for a short time after exile - L.K.), Vladimir Ilyich illegally visits Moscow to visit his relatives. In Podolsk, he was met by his younger brother Dmitry, who was serving his term of exile in this town near Moscow. He also managed to come under police surveillance. “I found him in the third-class carriage of a long-distance train,” writes Dmitry Ulyanov, “Vladimir Ilyich looked healthier, put on weight, of course, not at all the same as after the preliminary training.” (This refers to the house of preliminary detention. - L.K.). “We lived at that time on the outskirts of Moscow near Kamer-Kollezhsky Val, along Bakhmetvvskaya Street,” sister Anna Ilyinichna complements the brother’s story. Seeing the cab driver drive up, we all ran out onto the stairs to meet Vladimir Ilyich. The first to hear was the sorrowful exclamation of the mother: “How are you?” Did you write that you have recovered? How thin you are!” Before the joyful excitement (as they now write - euphoria) from the long-awaited meeting had died down, dear Volodya began to worry about his own revolutionary cause, sending his younger brother to the post office to give a telegram to the dear comrade who was for him in those days, Yuliy Martov (future irreconcilable enemy), with whom he intended to publish an all-Russian newspaper abroad, to build a party of a new type... “Boldly, brothers, boldly, and at the share of an evil song we will laugh daringly,” Vladimir Ilyich sang in those days a song composed by Martov, who did not shy away from inventing songs. At that time, other revolutionary songs were also sung, composed by another exile Gleb Krzhizhanovsky: “Rage, tyrants!” “Hostile whirlwinds”... Vladimir Ilyich and his younger sister selected melodies for them on the family piano, which, as we see, was also present on Bakhmetyevskaya Street, on the outskirts. Ulyanov’s illegal appearance in Moscow did not go unnoticed by the “watchful eye” of the police. The well-known head of the Moscow security department, Zubatov, reported “top secret”: “... a well-known literature (under the pseudonym Ilyin), a representative of Marxism, Vladimir Ulyanov, who had just served his term of exile in Siberia, settled, also illegally, in the apartment of his sister Anna Elizarova, who lives in the Sharonov house, on Bakhmetyevskaya Street, together with her husband Mark Elizarov and sister Maria Ulyanova (all three are under police supervision)." In all likelihood, the Marxist secret police were not particularly afraid at that time; they did not take any measures against Vladimir Ulyanov, who had violated the order, and gave him the opportunity to live with his relatives in Moscow. Lev Kolodny Cycle "Lenin without makeup" C double bottom So, having fought a good deal with the populists on the pages of the future book “What are “Friends of the People,” its young author stacked the manuscript of the monograph and, with the consciousness of fulfilling his duty, set off from St. Petersburg to Moscow. He earned the right to rest, and for the first time he presented himself as such not on the shores of his native Volga, in the wilderness near Kazan, in the ancestral Kokushkino, not on his own farm near Samara, where a friendly family usually gathered in the summer, but in unknown Kuzminki, near the Lyublino station of the Kursk railway near Moscow. Mark Elizarov, Anna Ilyinichna’s husband, worked on this road along with with two colleagues he rented a dacha for three families in a forested area conveniently connected to Moscow...I saw a two-story old house in Kuzminki, on the facade of which a memorial plaque hung for a long time, informing passers-by that it was here that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin lived in the summer of 1894. Near the mansion in the forest there were other dachas rented for children by Muscovites. This area has long been considered a dacha area, located near the famous Kuzminki and Lyublino estates near Moscow, abounding in berries, mushrooms, and cascades of ponds. Following the erection of the memorial plaque in the thirties, in the sixties the entire building was completely museumified through the efforts of enthusiastic local historians, headed by the old Bolshevik Bor-Ramensky, a candidate of historical sciences, a prisoner of Soviet camps. One day, about twenty years ago, he invited me to Kuzminki to look at his handiwork. The party veteran had something to show, something to be proud of: the two-story mansion was essentially turned into another Lenin memorial house-museum, the first one within the new borders of Moscow, which included the once Moscow region Kuzminki and Lyublino. Sparing no time, effort, or money, with the help of the Moscow City Party Committee and state museums, enthusiasts managed to get a lot of natural things from the late 19th century, books, and fill the spacious walls with them. I then wrote an essay about this museum. Of course, it was at the Kuzminskaya dacha that the leader completed the book, which interpreters of Leninism recognize as “a genuine manifesto of revolutionary social democracy.” It was this manifesto that ended with the sublime words: “... the Russian WORKER, rising at the head of all democratic elements, will overthrow absolutism and lead the RUSSIAN PROLETARIAT (along with the proletariat of ALL COUNTRIES) on the straight road of open political struggle to the VICTORIOUS COMMUNIST REVOLUTION.” It was already when the proletarians of the Lublin Foundry and Mechanical Plant neighboring the dacha and all other factories were destined to play the role of the avant-garde in the world shake-up conceived in the head of the young summer resident. Thus, the white dacha in Lyublino became the object of a museum display and a local landmark. Excursionists blazed a path to it, reverently looking at a simple metal bed, tucked in a thin blanket, a chair and a table under a table lamp with a green lampshade... Here the light seemed to be on until late, here the future leader wrote his works, translated Engels, Kautsky’s pamphlet “The Fundamental provisions of the Erfurt Program", at this dacha our leader learned to type on a typewriter, and certainly quickly. And suddenly, one dark day for enthusiasts, the museum was quietly closed. The exhibits were taken somewhere. As the saddened Bor-Ramensky, who lived out his days in a boarding school for veterans, told me, it was he who discovered identification documents in the archive. that the Ulyanov family lived not in this, but in another, not preserved dacha. Thus, one illusion associated with Lenin was put to rest. Old Bolsheviks, such as Bor-Ramensky, participants in the revolution and civil war, who served two decades in their native Soviet prisons and camps, believed until their last breath that they ended up in these same camps by accident, by some historical mistake, by evil will the traitor Stalin, who betrayed the great cause of Lenin. “And our Ilyich is a man of genius, he is not to blame for the camps,” Bor-Ramensky believed and instilled this thought in me, a then young party member. He had the courage and honesty to admit his mistake, which was shared with him by the party authorities who gave the go-ahead to open the museum. But he could not get to the bottom of the tragedy of his own ruined life and his generation. Whether at this or another dacha, but it was in Kuzminki that the author of the monograph “What is “Friends of the People” lived all summer - two and a half months. Not only wrote, translated classics. He learned to ride a bicycle, swam in the pond, met with Moscow young Marxists who decided to publish the work of the Petersburger on their own. To do this, he traveled from his dacha to Moscow, to Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, where in the depths of the property, in a two-story building, a member of the “six”, doctor Mitskevich, lived. In this house, the author handed over his manuscript to Moscow student A , Ganshina, who made a “great impression” on the latter. He volunteered to publish the work, fortunately he was a wealthy man. Recalling the conversations in Kuzminki on the shore of the pond thirty years later, the same aged publisher wrote that “even then it was felt that before you powerful mental strength and will, a great man in the future." Reading of the new work in circles took place both in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the rested and refreshed future "great man" went at the end of August, and then an assistant attorney at law, about whom, obviously , over the summer his colleagues from the legal clinic, where he used to receive plaintiffs as a lawyer, had forgotten. “Biochronika” does not mention even once about the practice of law in 1894: everything was secret circles, meetings with Marxist intellectuals, with workers in their apartments. The leader helped one proletarian study the first volume of “Capital” by Karl Marx. One can only imagine. what came out of this idea. .. At the end of the year, in a letter to his mother, he, busy studying Marx, asks to get him the third volume of Capital. Family matters are also a concern. The younger sister Maria Ilyinichna has difficulty completing the gymnasium course and is tormented that she is doing poorly, which she informs her beloved brother about. And he answers fatherly. From Biochronics we learn: “Lenin writes a letter to M.I. Ulyanova, in which he worries about her health and recommends not to overwork.” Everything is true, but not quite. This is what Vladimir Ilyich actually wrote to Maria Ilyinichna: “I cannot agree with your view of the gymnasium and classes... It seems to me that now the matter may at most be about finishing, and for this there is no reason at all to work hard ... What's the harm if you get C's, and as an exception, D's?.. Otherwise, you'll be seriously ill by the summer. If you can't teach carelessly, then it's better to quit and go abroad, You can always finish the Gymnasium - "The trip will now refresh you, shake you up, so that you are not too sour at home. There you can look around and stay to learn something more interesting than the history of Ilovaisky or the catechism of Filaret." Yes, my brother knew what he was saying, he studied Ilovaisky and Filaret himself, passed almost all gymnasium disciplines with A’s, he knew their value, he didn’t set them high. And so he advised his sister to quit her senior year at the age of 16, her family, and go study abroad! Knowing about the three sources of the family budget (mother’s pension, father’s inheritance, land rent), we will not be particularly surprised by such advice. Of course. that there would be “money” for travel, life, and study abroad for youngest daughter , as they were for all the other children. Here is an excerpt from another, later letter to my sister: “In general, I am very surprised that you are reluctant to go abroad. Is it really more interesting to sit in a village near Moscow?” Another Leninist instruction on this matter, this time to the mother; “Manyasha, in my opinion, is hesitating in vain. It would be useful for her to live and study abroad, in one of the capitals, and it would be especially convenient to study in Belgium. In what specialty does she want to attend lectures?” Finally, Manyasha made up her mind and, on the advice of her brother, went to Belgium, where she began listening to lectures at the university. “Manyasha’s plan to go to Brussels seems very good to me. She can probably study there better than in Switzerland. She’ll probably be able to master the French language soon. In terms of climate, they say it’s very good there.” When my sister ended up in Brussels, she not only studied, but followed new literature that interested her brother, bought expensive books and sent them to him in Russia... And he, having learned that Manyasha had settled in Brussels, deepened his knowledge about the location of the capital of Belgium, after which he wrote to his sister: “We now took up maps and began to look at where the hell Brussels is. We determined and began to think: it’s a stone’s throw to London, and to Paris, and to Germany, in the very center of Europe. .. yes, I envy you,” my brother wrote from places not so distant... It’s clear that he was unobtrusively encouraging his sister to go from Brussels for a walk to London, and to Paris, and to Berlin, everything is nearby, everything is at hand give if you have “money” in your hand, earned by the labor of Alapaevsk grain growers! With one hand, Vladimir Ulyanov accepts “money” from his mother, received for renting land, surplus value seized from the peasants of Alapaevka. And with the other hand, the young owner of the farm composes an economic article, where he writes with anger about certain “kulak elements who rent land in an amount far in excess of the need,” who “take away from the poor the land they need for food.” The youngest of the Ulyanovs was still doing poorly with her studies; she never fully completed the higher course of science, unlike other brothers and sisters who respected diplomas. Our illustrious teacher Nadezhda Konstantinovna, in turn, wrote to a young relative in Brussels who was tormented by remorse: “You live in completely different conditions. “Grain occupation,” I don’t know, I don’t know whether it’s worth preparing for it, I think it’s not worth it, but what if you will need money, go to some kind of railway, at least the allotted hours have rung and there is no concern, a free Kazakh, otherwise all sorts of pedagogies, medicine, etc. n, they capture the person more than they should. It’s a pity to waste time on special preparation..." Yes, you won’t find such revelations in the volumes of pedagogical works of N.K. Krupskaya. There are completely different instructions for the children of workers. But, as we see, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, the pillar scientific communist education, a fighter for the labor polytechnic school:.. These words can still be seen on the signs of many impoverished Moscow schools that have experienced more than one Bolshevik reform. Such an immoral view of service as a useless pastime for the sake of earning money is instilled in the girl, according to the poet ", "pondering life." All these and other letters are not only evidence of double morality, but also of the fact that the Ulyanovs and Krupskaya, who joined them, lived without need, in abundance, even being divided into four families. But now I would like to talk about something else. The Russian intelligentsia could send their children to study abroad, even with the average income of the Ulyanovs, intellectuals of the second generation. Not all, of course, Russian boys and girls studied at European universities without much benefit, like Maria Ulyanova.. Many received brilliant education, becoming chartered engineers. doctors, scientists... Many expanded their knowledge, broadened their horizons, adopted advanced experience and technologies in order to start their own business immediately after graduating from high school or home education, which was not inferior to the official one. In the 25th year of his life, Vladimir Ulyanov also rushed abroad to strengthen himself in his chosen faith in the homeland of his religious teachers... Vladimir Ilyich traveled abroad legally, with a foreign passport given to him for a trip for treatment, allegedly after an illness. The gendarmes hardly believed in some illness of the supervised brother of the formidable Alexander Ulyanov; before, they refused a foreign passport, advised him to receive treatment in the Caucasus, drink “Essentuki” No. 17. On May 1, 1895, the St. Petersburg resident who escaped to freedom crosses the state border of the Russian Empire and moves by rail to Switzerland. On the way, he encounters some difficulties in mastering spoken German, which he reported to his mother. After Switzerland - Paris, meeting the son-in-law of Karl Marx - Paul Lafargue. In July - Switzerland again, holiday at a resort. Although there were some temporary language difficulties when getting used to a foreign atmosphere, as evidenced by a letter from his mother, but, as we know, when he was in Europe for the first time, Vladimir Ulyanov felt free there: he rested, lived at a resort, spent hours in libraries, read from primary sources works that interested him, he wrote and translated. It didn’t matter to him where to live: either in Switzerland, or in France, or in Germany - for a completely understandable reason - thanks to his excellent knowledge of foreign languages. And it's not just about natural ability our leader to foreign speech, but also in the wonderful system of classical education that the Russian gymnasium provided. Not some special one, metropolitan, the most ordinary, provincial, Simbirsk in particular. Let's look at the schedule of classes in the seventh grade, when Vladimir Ulyanov studied there. (The training lasted eight years in total). We studied six days a week, four to a maximum of five lessons. Of the 28 hours of physics classes, only 5 hours were allocated to mathematics! An hour each for logic and geography, God's law. Two hours each for history and literature. And 16 (sixteen) hours a week, gymnasium students studied languages ​​- Greek, Latin, German and French, with the main attention paid to written and interpretation from Russian to foreign! The gymnasium authorities did not chase the percentage of academic performance, they were not afraid to give bad marks to the careless and incapable, and mercilessly left them for the second and third years. But those who received a matriculation certificate did not bakal, did not mekal, like all of us, pupils of Soviet schools and universities, did not wave their arms, resorting to sign language when the need arose to communicate with foreigners, whether at home or abroad. In real schools more time was devoted to natural science subjects. But classical gymnasium education was aimed at comprehending languages, at knowledge, first of all, of the humanities. This made it possible to shape the worldview and morality of young people, to give them the opportunity to feel like Europeans, to give them the key to the primary sources of the latest scientific literature, which was then published mainly in German and French. Gymnasium education allowed everyone, already at the age of 17, if they wished, to establish business relations with foreigners without translators, to found joint ventures, to go on business trips abroad, without experiencing difficulties in communication or comprehending information on any sciences, trades and crafts. This wonderful national gymnasium system of public education was destroyed when Vladimir Ulyanov, a student of the Simbirsk gymnasium, came to power. Together with his wife, who took up the affairs of “public education,” they once and for all put an end to Latin, Greek, and ancient languages, and minimized the study of modern European languages. And we got what we have today. After graduating from Moscow University, even Faculty of Philology , no one knows what every Russian high school student once knew! ...After Switzerland - Berlin, again acquaintances, meetings, writing an article, going to the theater, library... A letter arrives from Moscow with information that a new apartment is being looked for after the summer season... Russian people, finding themselves abroad in Those times, people did not rush to shops and stalls in the hope of buying something scarce or fashionable, they did not stare at shop windows as if they were museum displays. Any overseas product was sold in Moscow and other cities at approximately the same prices as in Berlin and Paris: the ruble, as you know, was a convertible, stable, respected currency. What did Vladimir Ulyanov buy abroad: books that were not available in Russia. I also bought a special suitcase - with a double bottom, which was in high demand among Russians. To transport not smuggled goods, but illegal literature, which for decades had been imported into the empire from Europe, where magazines and newspapers of various revolutionary parties were freely published. At the Nashensky customs during the inspection, the vigilant guards, although they turned over Mr. Ulyanov’s new suitcase, did not notice the double bottom, as well as everything that was transported across the border in it. And from not using such a tricky suitcase. Vladimir Ilyich, although he feared exposure, could not resist. When the inspection was safely completed, the traveler happily rushed home to Moscow, to his family, who at the beginning of September lived in Maysurovsky Lane, on Ostozhenka, as well as at a dacha near Moscow in Butovo, now famous for the construction of multi-storey box houses. Yes, Vladimir Ulyanov managed to deceive the customs officers and gendarmes, which pleased him like a child. In those days. as Anna Ilyinichna testifies, “he talked a lot about his trip and conversations, he was especially pleased, animated, I would say, radiant. The latter was mainly due to luck at the border, with the smuggling of illegal literature.” Vladimir Ilyich traveled from Moscow to Butovo, to the dacha, where “secret surveillance” was carried out over Anna Ilyinichna. Together with her husband Mark Elizarov, he made a trip to Orekhovo-Zuevo, a town near Moscow, where the famous Morozov manufactory, which by that time had become famous for a powerful strike of textile workers, ruled. I wanted to see this factory city, the fortress of the proletariat in the future revolutionary war. While the young revolutionary traveled around Europe for four months, the native police did not sleep and “swept up” many Moscow Marxists. “I was in Moscow,” wrote a Petersburger in those days, “I didn’t see anyone... There were huge pogroms there, but it seems that some people remained and the work does not stop.” While dark clouds are passing by over St. Petersburg, he is free. Happiness smiles on him. At customs, as we know, where the border was crossed, and it was then in Verzblow, everything worked out. The head of the border department reported to the Police Department that during the most thorough inspection of the luggage, nothing reprehensible was found in it. But there were only a few days left to walk freely. The St. Petersburg police turned out to be more vigilant than the Verzhblovskaya police. Lev KOLODNY. Lev Kolodny Cycle "Lenin without Makeup" Using someone else's passport In the summer of 1900, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov traveled abroad using a foreign passport issued in the name given to him by his father and mother. By that time he had many other names. In workers' circles they called him Nikolai Petrovich. In the St. Petersburg student circle of Marxists, because of early baldness, he became an Old Man. In Moscow circles - a St. Petersburger. The first books were published under the pseudonym Vladimir Ilyin, and, as we remember, the police knew well who was hiding under this pseudonym. In the German city of Munich, our hero secretly lived as Mr. Meyer. Nadezhda Konstantinovna, who came abroad from exile and came abroad from exile, found her husband under this nickname with great difficulty, believing that her husband was hiding on a passport in the name of the Czech Modrachek in the city of Prague. However, there was no conspirator in the Czech Republic. When meeting with Krupskaya, the real Modrachek guessed: “Oh, you are probably the wife of Herr Ritmeyer, he lives in Munich, but sent books and letters to you in Ufa through me.” Nadezhda Konstantinovna drove from Prague to Munich. She found a beer bar at the address given to her, and Herr Ritmeyer was behind the counter. He did not immediately understand what the unfamiliar woman wanted from him, who did not recognize him as her husband. “Oh, that’s right, Herr Meyer’s wife,” the bartender’s wife guessed, “he’s waiting for a wife from Siberia. I’ll see you off.” And she led me into the apartment, where Vladimir Ilyich, his older sister Anna and friend and colleague Yuli Martov were sitting at the table... “Many Russians later traveled in the same style,” Nadezhda Konstantinovna recalled that episode, “Shlyapnikov stopped by for the first time instead of Geneva to Genoa: Babushkin almost ended up in America instead of London.” The young wife of a former sworn attorney, who had not served anywhere and received no salary, could travel around Europe, and having settled there, call her retired mother to help run the household. Our revolutionaries had a passport and money so that they could move from Moscow and other Russian cities to the well-fed, well-groomed cities of Europe, where, rolling up their sleeves, they began to push their homeland towards revolution. After the arrival of his wife, several metamorphoses occurred in Vladimir Ilyich’s lifestyle. If before her appearance in Munich he stayed without a passport, without registration under the name Meyer, then after reuniting with Nadezhda Konstantinovna, a passport appeared in the name of the Bulgarian doctor of jurisprudence Mordan K. Iordanov, presented by Bulgarian friends, Social Democrats. The conspiracy was also evident in the fact that all correspondence between foreign countries and Russia went through the Czech Modraček in Prague. From him, only by mail did it fall into the hands of an illegal immigrant in Munich. Jordan K. Iordanov and his wife lived quietly in the suburbs, their circle of contacts was strictly limited to trusted people. Having spent fourteen months in a cell in a pretrial detention house, having served from bell to bell three years of exile in Eastern Siberia, and then being sent back to a pretrial detention house for ten days for illegal travel from Pskov through Tsarskoe Selo to St. Petersburg, Vladimir Ilyich, apparently, I was determined never to expose myself to arrest again. Unlike, say, comrades Dzerzhinsky and Spleen, who repeatedly escaped from exile, Lenin, having served his term properly, did not even think about escaping, although this was relatively easy to do. Having been released, knowing well what he had to do, namely, publishing an underground all-Russian party newspaper, the future editor understood perfectly well that it was almost impossible to publish it in Russia. The illegal newspaper prepared for publication there faced the same fate as Rabochiy Put, which was seized by the police just before publication. Vladimir Ulyanov remembered well how the first congress of the newborn Social Democratic Party, which took place while he was in Shushenskoye, Minsk, ended. Nine delegates attended. The police arrested the newly-minted members of the Central Committee, as did almost all the delegates to the historic congress. Therefore, answering the question “What to do?” in his famous work, its author understood: an all-Russian newspaper and party can only be put on their feet abroad. Therefore, he went to Europe for a long time, developing incredibly vigorous activity there. Living in exile, Mr. Meyer finds a printing house, obtains Russian type illegally, and acquires correspondents and agents. At the end of 1900, the long-awaited first issue of the well-known Iskra with the epigraph from Alexander Pushkin “From a spark will ignite a flame!” was published, as well as the magazine Zarya... To publish the magazine, the owner of the printing house was presented with a passport in the name of Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, hereditary nobleman. By that time, the legal owner of the passport was in the next world. As the historian M. Stein found out, the passport of the dying collegiate secretary was taken by his daughter Olga Nikolaevna and given to her friend Nadezhda Krupskaya. In other words, the passport was stolen in this way. The document fell into capable hands. They falsified the year of birth. There were no photographs on passports back then. The owner of the fake passport signed his article in the Zarya magazine with a new pseudonym - Nikolai Lenin, going down in history under this false name. As we see, deception in various forms has become a way of life for the proletarian revolutionary. By that time, the editor of Iskra had many other pseudonyms: K. Tulin, K. Tn, Vladimir Ilyin... In total, their researchers number more than 160... But of these, N. Lenin became the most famous, and the reason His appearance was not prompted by a passion for the Siberian river Lena, or the female name Lena, but by a secret operation related to the theft of a passport. Having this document, as well as his own passport issued in St. Petersburg, nevertheless, Vladimir Ulyanov settled under the name Meyer, and without a passport in this name. This was possible in Germany at that time. As already mentioned, at first Vladimir Ilyich, aka Herr Meyer, lived without registration with the Parteigenosse Ritmeyer. “Although Ritmeyer was the owner of a pub, he was a Social Democrat and sheltered Vladimir Ilyich in his apartment. Vladimir Ilyich’s little room was poor, he lived on a bachelor’s foot, dined with some German woman who treated him to melshpeise. (That is, flour dishes. - Ed.) In the morning and evening I drank tea from a tin mug, which I carefully washed and hung on a nail near the tap." In this description, Lenin’s biographer N. Vapentinov sees Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s desire to “become poor”, to paint an image that would correspond to the ideas of the masses about the appearance of the proletarian leader, who believe that their idol should have had a hard time. Hence, in her memoirs, we constantly meet “room” instead of a room, “house” instead of a house, and so on. In fact, Ilyich did not have any deprivations before or after his wife’s arrival. Herr Mayer just didn’t attach any importance special attention everyday life and dined with a neighbor who was not generous with her inventions - a German cook, who treated the guest to German pies and crumpets, apparently in no way inferior to his favorite Siberian analogues, shanezhkas, etc. Ulyanov-Meyer could afford to have lunch every day in a restaurant, drink tea not from a tin cup, but from a porcelain cup, and live in a separate apartment, and not a “room”. As editor of Iskra, he began for the first time to receive a permanent salary, the same as the recognized leader Plekhanov. What allowed us to live comfortably, like a bourgeois. From time to time literary fees arrived, sometimes large - 250 rubles. At the age of thirty, his mother Maria Alexandrovna continued to send money to her son. When Iskra began to publish, Maria Alexandrovna sent 500 rubles from Moscow with the editor of Iskra, Potresov. The latter mistakenly believed that this money was transferred for the newspaper... It could not have occurred to him that such a large amount was sent by his mother for personal expenses to his over-aged son. Nadezhda Konstantinovna served as a secretary at Iskra; she was entered in Iordanov’s passport under the name Maritsa. After living for a month in a certain “working family,” Dr. Iordanov and his wife Maritsa rented an apartment on the outskirts of Munich in a new building. We bought furniture. If Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s tendency to “poorize” emigrant life is not particularly striking, then Anna Ilyinichna’s deliberate misinformation is clearly visible. “During our rare visits,” writes Anna Ilyinichna, “we could always establish that his nutrition was far from sufficient.” This remark refers to life abroad, where the older sister, who had never served anywhere, could come whenever she wanted. She was lying when she wrote that in Shushenskoye her brother lived “on his own government allowance of 8 rubles a month,” while financial support from the family did not stop. They sent my brother boxes of books, expensive ones at that, and gave him a hunting rifle and much more. When party publicists took up the portrait of the leader, complete lies flowed from their pens. “Like Comrade Lenin himself, and almost all the other Bolsheviks, lived from hand to mouth, and gave their last kopecks to create their newspaper. Vladimir Ilyich was always poor in his first emigration. That is why, perhaps, our proletarian leader died so early,” he fantasized in the book “Lenin in Geneva and Paris,” published in 1924, “Comrade Leva,” also known as the Bolshevik M. Vladimirov, who served as a typesetter for Iskra. He couldn’t help but know that you couldn’t publish a newspaper with pennies or kopecks. Tens of thousands of rubles a year were required. “Comrade Leva” did not live from hand to mouth either, because the work of typesetters was paid just as well as that of editors. This author made up a story about the life of a leader from hand to mouth. Lenin himself wrote that he “never felt the need.” Where did the money come from, thousands? They were given by wealthy people - entrepreneurs, merchants, writers, who believed that with the help of social democrats, such decisive ones as Nikolai Lenin, they would be able to destroy the autocracy, make life in Russia free, as in European countries where there was a parliament, parties, independent newspapers , where people could gather for meetings, demonstrations, and do things that subjects of the emperor in Tsarist Russia did not have the right to do before the 1905 revolution. Living near Munich, the Jordanovs, according to Nadezhda Kynstantinovna, “observed strict secrecy... They met only with Parvus, who lived not far from us in Schwabing, with his wife and son... Then Parvus took a very left-wing position, collaborated in Iskra" , was interested in Russian affairs." Who is this Parvus? The editors of the ten-volume “Memoirs of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin,” from which I quote these lines, give practically no information about Parvus, they only write that real name his is Gelfand, and his initials are A.A. In the recently published second volume of the Great Encyclopedic Dictionary we find a brief reference. "Parvus (real name and surname Al-Dr. Lvovich Gelfand. 1869-1924), participant in the Russian and German Social Democratic movements. Since 1903, a Menshevik. During the 1st World War, a social chauvinist: lived in Germany. In 1918, he retired from political activities." Meanwhile, the personality of Parvus requires special attention. Comrade Krupskaya doesn’t say much about him! What kind of exemplary family man is Parvus, at whose fireside the childless Ulyanov couple warmed themselves, playing with their little son? Why did Nadezhda Konstantinbvna, having mentioned what position Parvus occupied at the beginning of the century and what he was interested in in the past, not say a word about what the mentioned figure did later, as if her readers were well aware of him. Yes, well, very well, many Bolsheviks knew this exemplary family man Parvus: Nadezhda Konstantinovna, and Vladimir Ilyich, and Lev Davidovich Trotsky - all other leaders, as well as Maxim Gorky. Parvus spent a lot of money both when he collaborated with Iskra and when he stopped being interested Russian affairs. Maxim Gorky instructed him to collect literary fees from foreign publishing houses, and he, having pumped out astronomical sums at a time when the writer was published all over the world, and his plays were performed in many foreign theaters, did not return the due publishing tribute to the author, squandered thousands with his mistress, about which "Petrel" wrote sadly. The same Parvus in March 1915 sent a secret memorandum to the German government “On the increase in mass unrest in Russia”, where he dedicated a special section to the Social Democrats and personally to the leader of the Bolshevik Party, well known to him from working together in Iskra. Following this, in March of the same year (what efficiency) the German Treasury allocated 2 million marks for revolutionary propaganda in Russia. And on December 15, Parvus gave a receipt that he received 15 million marks for “strengthening the revolutionary movement in Russia”, organizing a certain “Bureau of International Economic Cooperation”, legally feeding the top of all socialist parties, including the Bolsheviks, from its cash register. Ilyich’s comrade-in-arms, Yakov Ganetsky, the future Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade, found himself in Parvus’s bureau as an employee. Through the commercial firm of his sister Sumenson and the Bolshevik (Lenin's comrade-in-arms) M. Kozlovsky, the future chairman of the Small Council of People's Commissars, the financial German river flowed into the ocean of the Russian revolution, churning up the stormy waters that rolled onto the Neva embankment, where the Winter Palace stood. How this secret mechanism is familiar to us today from the pages of modern newspapers, where they report on other dummies, other companies of “friends” through which hundreds of millions (maybe more, who can count them now?) flowed from our country abroad to the cause of the world revolution, which never took place after the “Great October Revolution”! Yes, Vladimir Ilyich did not live “from hand to mouth”, did not give “his last penny” to publish a newspaper, as it seemed to “Comrade Leva,” an ordinary revolutionary. Thousands of rubles a month were spent on the publication and delivery of Iskra, and the costs of secret transportation were high. Trusted people and agents carried the newspaper in double-bottomed suitcases. In addition to the Bolsheviks, smugglers were involved in this business; they were not distinguished by altruism. Transports with the newspaper traveled by land, through various customs offices, and by sea through different cities and countries: Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea, through Persia, on the Caspian Sea... “All these transports ate a lot of money,” testifies Iskra secretary Krupskaya, Knowing the technology of this smuggling business well, she writes that at an appointed place, literature wrapped in a tarpaulin was thrown into the sea, after which “our people fished it out.” A truly global scale, a titanic effort. Just as in Munich, Lenin settled in England under a false name in the spring of 1902. “In a secret sense, we settled down in the best possible way. They didn’t ask for any documents in London at that time, you could sign up under any name,” says N.K. Krupskaya. “We signed up as Richters. It was also a great convenience that for the British all foreigners were the same face, and the hostess always considered us Germans.” How simple everything was for these once frivolous Germans and English! In Munich, you could introduce yourself as Meyer, then live under Iordanov’s passport, adding your wife into it without any certificates under the name Maritza... In London, you didn’t need a passport at all, they obviously signed up in the house register as Richters... You read Krupskaya’s memoirs about all these conspiracy tricks and you think that they are not as innocent as they might seem at first glance. It was these little tricks, hoaxes, deceptions that led us all to big trouble. Where did this whole game start? From a false address indicated in the form of the Rumyantsev Library? Or from a fraudulent passport stolen from the dying collegiate secretary Nikolai Lenin? From the deception of a simple-minded Minusinsk police officer, who was asked for permission to travel to fellow party members under the pretext of... geological exploration of a scientifically interesting mountain? It all started with the deception of the spies - gendarmes, police officers, police officers, and ended with the deception of the entire people, who, instead of the promised peace with Germany, received a fierce civil war ; instead of bread - hunger, instead of land - committees of poor people, political departments, collective farms; instead of workers' control over factories and plants - economic councils, people's commissariats, ministries... And in London the Ulyanov-Richters lived like a family, called, as usual, Nedezhda Konstantinovna's mother, rented an apartment, decided, according to Krupskaya, to feed themselves at home, and not in restaurants, “since Russian stomachs are very little adapted to all these “ox tails”, stingrays fried in fat, cupcakes, and at that time we lived at government expense, so we had to save every penny, and it was cheaper to live on our own farm " Lev KOLODNY. Lev Kolodny Cycle “Lenin without makeup” Through blue glasses... In the early spring of 1906, a train again delivered the leader, who was living on a false passport, from St. Petersburg to Moscow. No one met him at the station. For reasons of secrecy, Ilyich did not notify anyone of his arrival. From Kalanchevskaya Square I went to an apartment in Bolshoi Kozikhinsky Lane (now Ostuzheva Street) near Tverskaya, where Ivan Ivanovich Skvortsov, a Bolshevik, a Bolshevik, a member of the so-called literary and lecture group at the MK RSDLP, lived at the city school on Arbat. Through him, he intended to contact the leadership of the Moscow Committee, which had gone deeply underground and was licking its wounds after the disaster in December 1905. The owner of the apartment, Skvortsov Stepanov, the future editor of the Izvestia newspaper, several times received a dear guest who asked for detailed stories about the same suppressed Moscow uprising. The leader was settled in the apartment of a doctor, a certain “L”, last name; he was never identified, despite the efforts of the trackers who studied Lenin’s life in Moscow. In those March days of 1906. He once spent the night on Bolshaya Bronnaya, in house 5, in the apartment of the Maly Theater artist N. M. Padarin. It could not have occurred to the security guards that in the mansion of an artist of the Imperial Theater they were welcoming a revolutionary, who was most guilty of the bloody drama that played out on the streets of Moscow. As Skvortsov-Stepanov recalled those days: “Vladimir Ilyich treated everything connected with the Moscow uprising with burning attention. It seems to me that I can still see how his eyes shone and his whole face lit up with a joyful smile when I told him that in Moscow no one, and above all the workers, has a feeling of depression, but rather the opposite... There is no reason to refuse a repetition of the armed uprising.” More than a thousand killed students, workers, women, children, many wounded: funerals, lamentations of relatives of the deceased, fresh graves. And a face lit up with a smile! In those days, Ilyich visited his longtime acquaintance, doctor Mitskevich, a former member of the “six” students who late XIX centuries they organized a group from which the history of the Moscow party organization began, which attracted the people to the barricades. Mickiewicz’s wife, who received the guest, also testified that he was full of optimism, warned his comrades not to become despondent, and argued that there was a temporary forced lull before new battles. Moscow party members did everything possible to ensure that the leader did not fail in “red Moscow” and was not arrested. Apparently, he did not spend more than one night with any of those who provided shelter. so as not to fall into the field of view of janitors and police. In those days, Lenin still believed that the party would be able to trigger another powerful revolutionary wave. Ilyich mistakenly believed that she should have risen high again that same year. A secret meeting between the main theorist of Bolshevism and militants and members of the so-called military technical bureau, that is, practitioners, took place in Devyatinsky Lane. Some of them preferred defensive tactics of the uprising, others - offensive ones. The leader listened carefully to both sides, and, naturally, supported the supporters of active action. “December clearly confirmed,” wrote Lenin in the article “Lessons of the Moscow Uprising,” “another deep position of Marx, forgotten by the opportunists, who wrote that an uprising is an art and that the main rule of this art is a desperately bold, irrevocably decisive offensive.” Judging by the information that has reached us, Ilyich in the March days of 1906 moved around the city from morning to night, from place to place, from one safe house to another, from one meeting to another. At the one that was scheduled for Teatralny Proezd in the premises of the Museum of Labor Assistance, all this vigorous activity came to an end. The police officer intervened and, seeing a crowd of people, asked if there was permission for such a meeting. - The police are upstairs. I managed to escape. We must leave immediately,” these were the words that one of the meeting participants, who had managed to get away from harm, greeted the leader as he hurried to the meeting. Ilyich had to hastily retreat from Moscow. There are several reminders of those days spent in the city on the walls of the buildings. memorial plaques: they are on the house on Ostozhenka, where the Moscow activists of the party gathered in a safe apartment, on Bolshaya Sukharevskaya, where the Zamoskvoretsky district committee met in the apartment of the paramedic of the Sheremetevsky Hospice House, on the house in Merzlyakovsky Lane, where a sworn attorney, a certain V. A. Zhdanov, a member, lived the already mentioned literary and lecture group... None of the artists, doctors, paramedics, teachers, lawyers who provided housing for meetings and overnight stays for the leader had the idea that Lenin, having come to power, would throw them all out of their cozy nests . Talking about Vladimir Ilyich’s living in other people’s apartments, Nadezhda Konstantinovna more than once emphasized that he experienced great inconvenience and was worried about what he sometimes brought strangers concern about your settlement. “Ilyich toiled about at nights, which was very painful for him. He was generally very shy, he was embarrassed by the polite care of his kind hosts...” Here is another similar remark: “I spent hours walking from corner to corner on tiptoe, so as not to disturb the housewives,” who were playing the piano behind the wall, pondering, during such tiptoeing, the lines of a new work analyzing the experience of the revolution. And such a shy, helpful, truly intelligent, polite person came up with a solution to the housing problem after the seizure of power. After which the playing of the piano and the cheerful chirping of the girls - the owners of the clean apartments, which soon after the revolution ceased to be physically clean, turned into overcrowded communal apartments with a shared bathroom, a shared toilet for several dozen residents, fell silent forever. Yes, the helpful and courteous guest repaid with black ingratitude both the Moscow well-wisher from Bronnaya, the actor Padarin, and the doctor “L”, and the St. Petersburg liberals - the dentist Dora Dvoiris from Nevsky Prospekt, and the dentist Lavrentyev from Nikolaevskaya Street, and the lawyer Chekrul-Kusha" , and to dad Roda, the landlord, the father of Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s friend, who kindly provided an apartment for a party. I thanked all the others who sympathized with the revolution in full. That’s what they fought for - that’s what they ran into. It happened in the past, it can happen now. Then everyone remained the listed gentlemen without apartments, furniture, without fur coats, white-foam sets, silverware and, of course, food, without money and jewelry... Living for a long time in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Lenin had a good idea of ​​the capital's apartment buildings and their homes. As a rule, there were five to seven or more rooms.They were designed in such a way that in large families, each adult family member had a separate room, not counting the living room. Servants also lived in such large apartments. These apartments are well known to native Muscovites and St. Petersburg residents, the inhabitants of the current slums in the city centers. The ill-fated communal apartments occurred precisely as a result of the victories of the armed uprising, after the social revolution that was conceived by Vladimir Ulyanov, when he wandered from one apartment to another and took a good look at their size, figuring out in his mind what to do with the residents when the worker finally won the class is, in fact, his party. Even before seizing power, the future head of the Soviet government played out the following scenario in his head: “The proletarian state must forcibly move a desperately needy family into a rich man’s apartment. Our workers' militia detachment consists of, say, 15 people: two sailors, two soldiers, two class-conscious workers, of whom only one should be a member of our party or a sympathizer with it, then an intellectual and 8 people from the working poor, certainly at least 5 women, servants, laborers, etc. The detachment goes to the rich man’s apartment, inspects it, they find 5 rooms for two men and two women - “You, citizens, will squeeze into two rooms this winter, and prepare two rooms for two families to live in.” from the basement. Until we, with the help of engineers (you seem to be an engineer?) build good apartments for everyone, be sure to make room. A citizen student who is in our detachment will now write the text of the state order in two copies, and you will be kind enough give us a receipt that you undertake to fulfill it exactly." This was such a blue dream, which in reality turned into an evil nightmare and quiet horror. It lasts for over seventy years in the old houses of Moscow, where after October uninvited guests showed up without an invitation - detachments of “conscious workers and soldiers.” Yes, in multi-room apartments intended for one family, with one kitchen, one bathroom and one toilet, according to the instructions of the leader, a family was accommodated in each room. Yes, just not temporarily, “for this winter.” What came of it all was described by Mikhail Bulgakov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and many other writers, who left us pictures of post-revolutionary life. Communal apartments poison the lives of many people today. The end of this Leninist initiative is not yet in sight. Citizen engineers have not built enough housing for working citizens in almost a century, because many of them began building objects of a completely different nature, “closed” cities, which we learn about today, rocket launch sites, bases, and so on. But citizens did not have their own means to get decent housing. By the way, skilled workers in pre-revolutionary capitals could rent completely bourgeois apartments, furnishing them with furniture. It’s strange, but the attention of historians, who have repeatedly republished and supplemented the reference book “Lenin in Moscow,” has escaped the attention of another case of the leader’s visit to Moscow during the days of the 1905 revolution, and this was witnessed not by anyone but Krupskaya. She dates this visit to Moscow to the autumn of 1905. Then she also had to urgently leave the city, which had not yet known the horror of an “armed uprising,” and not without the masquerade that Ilyich gravitated toward. He proceeded to the train station. .. in blue glasses, and in his hands he held a yellow Finnish bag, In this form the Muscovites put their idol into the last carriage of the express train. This masquerade, according to Nadezhda Krupskaya, instead of being a distraction, attracted the attention of the police to him. Arriving at her husband’s apartment after his return from Moscow, she discovered spies. We decided to leave urgently. And they left, holding hands, like a respectable married couple. Nobody stopped. Nobody asked for documents. However, from the entrance they went “in the opposite direction to the one that was needed,” sat on one, then another, then a third cab, and covered their tracks. Reading about all these appearances, safe houses, cab rides, dates in furnished rooms, masquerade dressing up, you begin to think that Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna clearly suffered from persecution mania, fearing constant arrest, for which, of course, there were reasons well known to them. If Ilmch returned from Moscow wearing blue glasses, then, having attended the party congress in Stockholm in 1906, he returned so that his dear wife did not recognize him. He shaved his beard, cut his mustache, and put a straw hat on his head. Yes, Ilyich loved masquerade, introduced the method of changing appearance into party practice for decades, and in this matter he was a smoker. ...Recently, the Prosecutor General of Russia Valentin Stepankov reported that on Old Square, among thousands of different offices of the CPSU Central Committee, an “absolutely underground workshop for counterfeiting needs” was unexpectedly discovered. In room No. 516 there were fourteen secret rooms where the fabrication of false documents was taking place for the party agents and its “friends” to illegally cross the border and live abroad. As the Prosecutor General writes, in these underground rooms they found not only fake passports, stamps, seals, forms, many photographs and similar attributes necessary for making false documents, but also “means for changing appearance - wigs, fake mustaches, beards, makeup accessories". According to the prosecutor, this so-called secret group of “party technicians” under the international department of the CPSU Central Committee dates back to the times of the Comintern, that is, from the first years of the revolution. But there is a clear inaccuracy here. The entire Bolshevik “party technique” originates from Vladimir Ilyich’s wigs and makeup, from his blue glasses and straw hat. When the Chilean leader of the Communist Party, Comrade Luis Corvalan. in 1983, they decided to transfer from Moscow from one hemisphere to another - to Chile to work underground, then the security officers and the guys from the “party equipment” followed Ilyich’s precepts. They developed an operation, in the report of which they reported: “Changing the appearance of Comrade Jorge (that is, Luis Corvalan - Ed.) - plastic surgery was performed, hair color and hairstyle were changed, glasses and contact lenses were selected for constant wear, work was carried out with teeth, special belts were given to reduce the overall weight and some changes in the figure and gait." In all this one can easily see continuity with what Vladimir Ilyich did during the years of the first Russian revolution. Of course, he did not have contact lenses, special belts and plastic surgery to perform on him then the doctors couldn’t, but Comrade Jorge borrowed a lot from Comrade Karpov, Weber, Nikolai Lenin... By the way, skillfully made wigs in the past cost a lot of money, but they were also used to change appearance and for comfortable living in hotels and private apartments , and for trips around the country and abroad. Nadezhda Konstantinovna recalled that one late evening she returned from St. Petersburg to a Finnish dacha, and there, hungry and cold, seventeen unexpected guests were waiting for her, seventeen party activists chosen for the congress, who were heading... to London. Where they proceeded the next day from Finland. First to Sweden, from there by sea to England and back, and a few weeks later they returned to different cities in Russia. Among the delegates was, in particular, Ivan Babushkin, one of the few workers who became a professional revolutionary, which allowed him to move freely throughout the empire and beyond. Fulfilling the will of the party, which called the people to arms, Ivan Vasilyevich took up its prey. Babushkin was arrested red-handed while transporting weapons. The punitive expedition, embittered by the murders by the revolutionaries, dealt with Babushkin without trial. He was shot at the crime scene. Did Ivan Vasilyevich remember last moments the life of his St. Petersburg mentor, who taught him the basics of Marxism, the energetic Nikolai Petrovich, did he remember the leader who presided over the congress in London, who stood up for this very weapon for which he paid with his life? Despite the constant surveillance, as Krupskaya writes, “... the police still did not know very, very much, for example, the place of residence of Vladimir Ilyich. The police apparatus was in 1905 and throughout 1906 quite disorganized.” Is it so? In January 1906, the St. Petersburg secret police began to find out the leader’s address for his arrest. However, the basis for it was not the fact of the Moscow armed uprising, but... Ilyich’s article in the newspaper, in which the authorities saw “a direct call for an armed uprising.” The article caught the eye of Count Witte himself, the prime minister, who forwarded it to the police department. The command was given to arrest the author of the article. But here's a paradox! The surveillance was carried out constantly, the command was given, but there was no hurry to carry it out. Having returned to St. Petersburg after his first visit to Moscow at the beginning of 1906, Ilyich urgently changed one St. Petersburg address after another because of this surveillance. After his second visit to Moscow, Lenin lives on a passport in the name of Dr. Weber. Under a different name, Karpova speaks publicly at various meetings. His publications are arrested, their publishers are brought to justice, and the author himself lives with impunity in the capital, appears wherever he wants, and in case of danger, rushes across the border to Finland. Only a year later, in January 1907, the police department informed the St. Petersburg security department that Lenin lived in Kuokkala, where he held crowded meetings. Following the St. Petersburg authorities, it seems that the Moscow authorities also took up Ilyin, deciding to initiate prosecution for the publication of the famous work “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.” Although the exact address of the leader was known to the police at the beginning of the year, in April the judicial investigator of the 27th precinct in St. Petersburg wrote a statement to the district court “about the search for Lenin through publication.” In June, a circular was sent throughout the empire with a list of people to be searched and arrested. Under N 2611 it says: “Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (pseudonym N. Lenin).” According to this circular, it was necessary to “arrest, search, transfer to the disposal of the investigator of the 27th educational district of St. Petersburg.” This serial number 2611 eloquently proves that the tsarist law enforcement agencies did not then understand the role of N. Lenin in the events and did not single him out in the first line among all other revolutionaries. Foreign agents also reported to St. Petersburg about the leader’s address in Finland; the fact of Ilyich’s meeting with Kamo, who was known to have robbed the postal carriage with the treasury, did not escape their attention. By the way, at the Finnish dacha this militant gave Lenin the loot. But this fact of the tsarist police, apparently, was not enough for the arrest. Police correspondence shows that in November Lenin's Finnish apartment in Kuokkala was under surveillance. Well, he hid from the police again. First he settled near Helsingfors, present-day Helsinki. Then in December 1907 he decided to go into exile again, making sure that there would be no more uprising. Covering his tracks, Lenin moved around the country using someone else's new passport in the name of a Finnish cook, not being able to speak Finnish. He traveled by train, walked, traveled by ferry, on horseback... He headed by sled to a remote island to board the ship. I did not board like all the passengers at the pier, where documents were checked. Rare Aboriginal passengers were usually picked up on the island. There were no police there. At night on the way to the island, accompanied by two drunken guides, Finnish peasants, walking on the ice Gulf of Finland, Vladimir Ilyich fell through the ice and almost drowned. “Oh, how stupid it is to die,” the leader in distress managed to think then, But everything turned out okay. We reached the island on adventures. And the ship took away the Finnish cook, whose last name we no longer recognize, from Russia for many years. Lev KOLODNY. Lev Kolodny Cycle “Lenin without makeup” “Exes” for the dictatorship of the proletariat Having left Russia, where the earth began to burn under his feet, Lenin decided to settle in Geneva. This happened at the beginning of 1908, then the second emigration began, which lasted almost ten years! The Ulyanov couple no longer hid from anyone, did not live as in St. Petersburg, separately, meeting in a hotel, they established family life , settled into a new apartment. Vladimir Ilyich hurried to the library in the morning, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna, as usual, was engaged in secretarial work, restoring party connections, arranging transport for delivering an illegal newspaper to her homeland... And suddenly all this familiar life almost collapsed, barely having time to begin. This was connected with one of the largest criminal stories that the police of Europe and Russia were involved in, or more precisely, a criminal case to which the Ulyanovs had a direct connection as accomplices. - Can't be! - the comrades picketing the Lenin Museum on Revolution Square will tell me with anger. - This is slander against our leader!.. But, unfortunately, facts are a stubborn thing, they just testify against Ilyich. Moreover, no one ever hid them. There is no need to dig through the archives to verify the above. It is enough to look through the volumes of collected works dating back to the era of the first Russian revolution, the minutes of the party congresses of that time (IV and V), it is enough to read the memoirs of Krupskaya, Gorky, Bonch-Bruevich, books about the life of S. A. Ter-Petrosyan, who went down in history under party nickname Kamo. It was he who stood at the head of a criminal group that committed a grave crime involving murder and robbery of a large sum of money. Nadezhda Konstantinovna calmly and artlessly reports this in the part of her memoirs that begins the second part of her memoirs, the chapter entitled “Years of Reaction. Geneva.” “In July 1907, expropriation was carried out in Tiflis on Erivan Square. At the height of the revolution, when the struggle was on a deployed front, the Bolsheviks considered it acceptable to seize the tsarist treasury and allowed expropriation. The money from the Tiflis expropriation was transferred to the Bolshevik faction. But they could not be used, they "were in five hundred rubles that had to be exchanged. In Russia this could not be done, because the banks always had lists of numbers taken during the expropriation of five hundred rubles." It must be said that this could not be done abroad, because European banks also had the numbers of the stolen banknotes. But the Bolsheviks did not know this. Thus, thanks to the marked banknotes, such famous Bolsheviks as Litvinov, the future People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Semashko, the future People's Commissar of Health, Karpinsky, the future editor-in-chief of Soviet newspapers, and others were caught red-handed. One must think that the Ulyanov couple experienced great anxiety, since they held these very marked five hundred royal rubles in their hands. Vladimir Ilyich received them when the leader of the Kamo group, who robbed a postal carriage, delivered two hundred thousand (out of 250) rubles safely to the dacha where the leader of the Bolshevik faction lived. I quote from the diary of Friend Kamo: “...he (Kamo - Ed.) had to go to Finland to see V.I. Lenin. When I asked why he needed to take a wineskin with him, he laughingly said that lucky as a gift to Lenin..." Ilyich also laughed, as biographers write, when he saw what, besides wine, was in that very wineskin. The other part of the money was packed in a barrel of wine, it was a barrel with a double bottom. Well, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna, according to her confession, sewed this same wine money with her own hands into the quilted vest of Comrade Lyadov, a famous Moscow Bolshevik, who transported money in this vest through cordon. This money, in particular, fell into the hands of Bonch-Bruevich, the main publisher of the party, and he transferred part of it to other comrades, including the editor of the Georgian newspaper Koba Ivanovich, that is, Joseph Vissarionovich. Comrade Koba received the money rightfully, because he was one of Kamo’s mentors, helped him, a young, untrained party fighter, to become a professional revolutionary, militant, expropriator, a threat to provocateurs... Kamo did not become a volunteer, as he wanted. Became a proletarian militant. However, Kamo is not a proletarian at all: he was born to an unlucky father, a meat merchant, and his grandfather was a priest. Nature endowed Kamo with fearlessness, iron will, the gift of suggestion, leadership and extraordinary acting transformation. He was seen in the attire of a prince, in the uniform of an officer, in the uniform of a student, in the dress of a peasant... It was in the uniform of an officer that he carried out an action on the main square of Tiflis that glorified him in the party as the most successful expropriator. But Kamo also killed provocateurs, as Bonch-Bruevich writes about, and having killed, he threw one of them into the Neva ice hole, about which the story follows. The first meeting between Lenin and Kamo took place a year before the robbery on Erivan Square. (Until recently, there was a monument to the leader on it, and it bore his name, as we see, not without reason, because Lenin is the mastermind of a robbery in broad daylight unheard of in the history of the Caucasus. The Kamo militants shot at a convoy of 16 guards, and it went to passers-by and horses Bombs and shots thundered for several minutes.). As Kamo’s wife Sofia Medvedeva writes: “Kamo described his first meeting with Lenin as follows: Ilyich greeted him with restraint, sat sideways to him and covered his eyes with his palm, as if protecting them from the light of the lamp. Kamo nevertheless noticed Vladimir Ilyich’s searching gaze between his loosely folded fingers. The conversation dragged on. Lenin asked about the progress of the partisan war in the Caucasus, he held it up as an example to other regions. Thanked for the money delivered to the Bolshevik Military Technical Committee. I watched with growing interest as Kamo gutted the “strange thing.” Between the double skins of the wineskin lay documents of enormous importance: a report on the work of the Caucasian Bolsheviks, plans related to preparations for the Unity Congress, a list of questions that only Vladimir Ilyich could answer" (this lady is silent about banknotes. - Ed.). What these people were united for many years from that first meeting until the day when a wreath with the inscription was laid on the coffin of the calmed militant: “To the unforgettable Kamo from Lenin and Krupskaya”? What is common between the son of a meat trader and the son of a teacher, between a Volzhanian and a Caucasian, a European-educated intellectual and who had not completed school as dropouts? They were united by a passion for conspiracy, underground technology, disguises, forgeries, hoaxes, guerrilla warfare (that is, the murders of “high-ranking officials,” raids on police stations, policemen, etc.), and finally, expropriations , armed seizures of banks, cash registers. The passion for expropriations can be traced throughout Ilyich’s life from the moment when he formed as a Marxist. His great teachers Marx and Engels were supportive of " guerrilla warfare ", their faithful disciple adored this very war, wrote about it many times with a sublime feeling, in balanced words, with which professional lawyers in court make speeches about inveterate scoundrels. In Lenin's secret instructions, written in October 1905, entitled "Tasks detachments of the revolutionary army" we read: "... the killing of spies, policemen, gendarmes, bombings of police stations, the release of those arrested, the confiscation of government funds to be used for the needs of the uprising - such operations are already being carried out wherever the uprising flares up, both in Poland and in the Caucasus, and every detachment of the revolutionary army must be immediately prepared for such operations." On the conscience of the author of the instructions, among the many different murders that happened during the days of the first revolution, which occurred when the "detachments of the revolutionary army" took up arms, lies also a little-known crime that happened in Petersburg, when Ilyich lived there illegally, it is strikingly reminiscent of the crime described by Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novel “Demons.” The root cause of the tragedy that struck the writer, as is known, was the murder of the Petrovsky Academy student Ivanov, who was suspected by the revolutionaries of treason, by the leader of the revolutionary organization “People’s Retribution” Sergei Nechaev. The Soviet Historical Encyclopedia presents Sergei Nechaev as “a man of strong character and great courage, fanatically devoted to the idea of ​​revolution.” Sergei Nechaev is known not only as a murderer, but also as the author of the “Catechism of a Revolutionary,” which called for the sake of the revolution to commit any crime: murder, blackmail, provocations. Convicted as a criminal, Sergei Nechaev, after serving ten years in the Peter and Paul Fortress, died before Vladimir Ulyanov appeared in St. Petersburg. The latter, it turns out, knew well everything that was connected with this villain. In conversations with a friend of his youth, party publisher Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, Lenin spoke of Sergei Nechaev as a titan of the revolution, a “fiery revolutionary” who “should be published in full.” At the same time, the leader was indignant at the novel “Demons.” “V.I. often stated what a clever trick the reactionaries played on Nechaev with the light hand of Dostoevsky and his disgusting but brilliant novel “Demons,” when even the revolutionary environment began to have a negative attitude towards Nechaev,” testified V.D. Bonch -Bruevich in the magazine "Thirty Days" in 1934. So, the murder I want to talk about happened thirty-five years after the murder of student Ivanov, but not in Moscow, but in St. Petersburg, with the light hand of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, and, in all likelihood, with the sanction of Vladimir Ilyich. “This cannot be,” the faithful Leninists will say again, “another slander.” Do not rush, comrades, with refutations, order from a good library a book by Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, published in 1933 in Leningrad under the title “Bolshevik Publishing Affairs in 1905-1907.” An excerpt from this book was published more than once in “Memoirs of Lenin”. However, in this passage, of course, there is no hint of murder. But if you open Chapter XII book from 1983, then on pages 61-68 you can read a detailed story that allows you to draw such a decisive conclusion about the complicity of the author of the memoirs and his friend in the crime. It is very reminiscent of the story that shocked thinking Russia, which learned about the tragedy in the park of the Petrovsko-Razumovskaya Agricultural Academy, where the lynching of “demons” - revolutionaries over the student I. I. Ivanov took place. Only no one found out about the murder in St. Petersburg in 1906. They learned about him many years later, in 1933, but no one then attached any importance to Bonch-Bruevich’s writing: at that time the country stopped paying attention to isolated murders, living on the eve of the “Great Terror.” Here is how it was. The head of the Bolshevik combat organization Nikitich and his comrade nicknamed Kalosha recommended to Bonch-Bruevich a guy named Volodya, the son of a poor woman well known to Nikitich and Kalosha, as a courier for the newspaper “New Life”. Their protégé moved from the newspaper to serve in the party book warehouse, which was managed by Bonch. One day a woman came to the warehouse Once again police. The owner, who got along well with her, prepared for the raid: he hid everything seditious. However, two packs of prohibited brochures somehow ended up in the most visible place. The bailiff had to forfeit 25 rubles in addition to the 50 he received. Who set up this provocation? This could have been done by one of the workers at the instigation of the bailiff. However, Bonch suspected the unlucky Volodka, although he personally had absolutely no reason to put the book warehouse in a peak position or expose it to the risk of closure. In this case, he would lose not only the job he received under his patronage, but also his housing. Homeless Volodka settled in a warehouse room, which was located in a large multi-room apartment at number 9 on Karavannaya Street. Volodka lived here happily, taking girls to his place at night when the warehouse was not open. It was they who brought him to clean water. Everyone noticed that Volodka lived beyond his means, dressed in everything new. According to Bonch, he was “all unnatural.” “After the bailiff’s visit,” the author writes, “I did not have the slightest doubt that this was his work, and I firmly decided to find out all the ins and outs about him. I have not liked him for a long time.” A “private investigation” of the owner of the book warehouse began, as they now say. It was an unusual warehouse. The point is not even that it contained illegal literature: it was impossible to surprise the police with such a thing back then. Everyone was dabbling in illegal things. The warehouse premises were used for secret meetings of the St. Petersburg Party Committee, to which Vladimir Ilyich, the same Nikitich, also a member of the Central Committee Leonid Krasin, and other party leaders appeared. This is the warehouse Volodka ended up in, on the recommendation of his comrades, without knowing it. Bonch's agents quickly found out that the warehouse courier was carousing in the tavern and even witnessed a fight, during which the words were addressed to the beaten Volodka: “Get out of here, you spy face, otherwise you won’t be alive!” Soon the girls who caused the fight in the tavern showed up at the warehouse and said to Vladimir Dmitrievich, who received them kindly, pointing to Volodka’s room: “There is constant drinking and drinking here at night.” And we know that Volodka receives money from the detective... Thus, the girls settled scores with their offender and left. And they continued monitoring the guy and saw one day in a tavern that behind the closet Volodka had a conversation with a detective, handed him some pieces of paper, and received rubles... “I went to Krasin, telling him that his protégé was an undoubted spy,” writes Bonch- Bruevich. “I notice that my papers are disappearing,” said Kalosha, who also supported Volodka. The guy was immediately punished, allegedly for drunkenness, although he did not allow himself to do anything like that publicly. He was not noticed in theft either, although they provoked him, they put expensive books in a visible place so that he would take them away. It seemed that this could be put to rest: the guy was fired, the warehouse door closed behind him... But his fate was decided differently. “You don’t need to bother with him,” Nikitich ordered, “but he needs to be handed over to our fighters...” Vladimir Dmitrievich did not argue. And thus he became an accomplice in the crime that he set in motion. Now let me give you a lengthy quote from Bonch, which put me in a state of shock: “The militants immediately registered Volodka, traced him down to the smallest detail, and only when they established his full involvement in the security department, he was destroyed by a group of militants operating under the leadership of Kamo. This it was done in such a way that, having disappeared from the apartment, he, of course, never appeared there again and was not found anywhere. Most likely, the current of the Neva River carried his corpse under the ice somewhere very far away, when after he was lowered into the hole at the blind crossing of the Neva." Yes, they killed the guy and threw him into an ice hole, so the mother, who asked Nikitich to protect her son, did not even bury her unlucky Volodka. From whom did Vladimir Dmitrievich learn about the “disappearance from the apartment” and other criminal details of the bloody drama that did not appear on the pages of either a criminal chronicle or a novel like “Demons”? It is clear that this could only be learned from the direct participants in the murder, who lowered the corpse of the unfortunate Volodka under the ice, or from Nikitich, who gave the command to carry out this military operation, which took place with the knowledge of Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich and, obviously, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), calling for the killing of spies. The combat organization was under his control. Yes, Volodka is a very unpleasant guy, maybe even an informant for the secret police, he stole papers from comrade Kaloshi, which did not stop him from walking around the capital city. But who gave the right to end him? Who are Vladimir Dmitrievich and Vladimir Ilyich, the namesakes of the unfortunate Volodka, who treated him in exactly the same way as Sergei Nechaev once did with the student Ivanov? Who gave them the right to judge and kill? With people like this unfortunate Volodka, drowned in the Neva ice-hole, we obviously should start counting the victims of the Bolshevik party, killed by its punishers back in 1906. This is how the leader’s instructions on the “tasks of the revolutionary army units” were put into practice, where the first point was the killing of spies. For the sake of truth, it must be said that the expropriations, which so pleased the heart of Vladimir Ilyich, aroused the rage of many social democrats, especially the Mensheviks. At the Fourth (Unification) Party Congress, held in Stockholm in 1906, the exploits of the Caucasian militants did not deserve applause. By an overwhelming majority of votes, the congress decided to prohibit any expropriation of party members. But the Bolsheviks and their militants, who by this time had formed into professional groups, if not gangs, did not think to implement this decision. A year later, the fifth party congress took place in London, where the flower of social democracy - Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, among them comrades from the Caucasus, including Koba Ivanovich, i.e. Stalin, came from Russia using forged documents and nicknames. And at this congress “exes” were banned. When was this fifth London Congress? In May, ended June 1st. When did Kamo's main feat take place on Erivan Square? June 13, 1907. And later his group was aimed at such “ex”. This means that the Caucasian Bolsheviks, personally Comrade Koba Ivanovich, did not care about the decisions of the two party congresses. Why? Yes, because they considered the resolution on “partisan uprisings”, which prohibited “exes”... to be Menshevik, which passed, in the words of Comrade Stalin, “completely by accident.” In the famous article “London Congress of the RSDLP” he wrote that the Bolsheviks this time did not accept the battle, did not want to see it through to the end, simply out of a desire to “let the Mensheviks rejoice at least once”... He himself did not vote for that reason , that he did not have the right to a decisive vote, otherwise he would have found himself in the minority, in the company of Lenin, who voted for the “exes”. Yes, that’s how it was, dear comrades. Lev KOLODNY.

Who was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin really? Before the revolution of 1917, in order to avoid arrest, he often had to transform himself, change clothes, put on makeup so that his loved ones did not recognize him. The last time, on the eve of the seizure of power in Petrograd, he came out of hiding and appeared in Smolny in the guise of a worker. When he got rid of the need to resort to makeup, his comrades, publicists, writers got down to business and presented Ilyich to the world in the image of a great proletarian leader, a defender of the working people of all countries, the founder of Leninism. Our time removes the masterful makeup from Lenin’s face. But he puts thick black on him, turning him into a fiend of hell. So who really was the founder of the Bolshevik Party and Soviet state IN AND. Lenin? A book by journalist and writer Lev Kolodny tries to answer this question.

A series: Versions of world history

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The given introductory fragment of the book Lenin without makeup (L. E. Kolodny, 2016) provided by our book partner - the company liters.

© Kolodny L.E., 2016

© Veche Publishing House LLC, 2016

© Veche Publishing House LLC, electronic version, 2016

Preface

In the image of a St. Petersburg worker in a hairy wig under a cap, clean-shaven, using forged documents in the name of Konstantin Petrovich Ivanov, Lenin appears in a photograph taken in August 1917. He looked so unrecognizable when the “sleuths of the Provisional Government” unsuccessfully hunted for him, as historians wrote. In a cap and clothes lying around, with his cheek bandaged with a rag, Ilyich unexpectedly appeared in Smolny, when his comrades-in-arms quickly stirred up the mess of the October Revolution.

Our leader loved transformations.

During the years of the first Russian revolution, Lenin once returned home from abroad in such a form that his wife did not recognize him: with a shaved beard and mustache, under a straw hat. Then they saw him in Moscow wearing large blue glasses, the kind worn by the visually impaired...

Yes, Vladimir Ilyich respected masquerades, makeup, make-up, wigs. I used them as an artist. He didn’t take off the wig or the rag from his cheek for a long time, even when he got to the headquarters of the revolution, which was buzzing like an agitated beehive.

When he got rid of the need to resort to wigs, party publicists got down to business and presented Ilyich to the world in the image of a great proletarian leader, a prophet of Leninism, in the makeup of a saint to the working people of all countries. Our time removes the masterful makeup from Lenin’s face. But he puts an equally thick black on him, turning him into a fiend of hell. Who was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin really?

I have long wanted to answer this question for myself. In the museum “Lenin’s Office and Apartment in the Kremlin” I saw a telephone book on the desk, made a copy of it and described it in Moskovskaya Pravda. It turned out that most of those whom Lenin called were shot. He went with questions to Lydia Fotieva, the leader’s secretary, asked the telephone operators of the Kremlin automatic telephone exchange, the stenographer Volodicheva, who wrote down Lenin’s will, went to Gorki with the driver Gil, who stood next to Lenin during the assassination attempt at the Mikhelson plant. (By the way, only one stone remained from him at the site of the assassination attempt and a monument.)

The more I learned about him, the stronger my conviction became: there is no need to demolish monuments, close Lenin museums, or disturb the grave on Red Square. Even irreconcilable ideological opponents admit: this man “played a role in history of amazing power and influence. Compared to him, Napoleon is a small thing.”

The experience of the Chinese Communist Party, which transformed a backward state into the second economy of the world, proves: the USSR, as a geopolitical reality, and the CPSU, as the ruling party, could continue to exist in the world if the “foremen of perestroika” had not made fatal mistakes.

Lenin is not responsible for these mistakes.

You can learn a lot about him without going into the secret archives. Just read the memoirs collected in “Memoirs of V.I. Lenin" in order to better understand who Ilyich was, as the leader of the October Revolution was called by contemporaries, starting from members of the Council people's commissars, ending with workers from the machine tools of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The poet Nikolai Poletaev wrote in 1924:

No portraits of Lenin are visible

There were no similar ones and there are none.

The centuries will be completed, apparently,

An unfinished portrait.

My book is another attempt to paint a portrait of this man. More than about him has been written only about Christ.

There is no longer any need to endorse every word about Lenin at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, where half a century ago I was not allowed to report in the newspaper that he was 164 centimeters tall. You can talk about everything that was hidden from the people. I took advantage of this and wrote the book “Lenin without Makeup.” It came out in 2000. Published for the second time ten years ago. I hope they will read it in 2016 too.